This fricking show.

Sure, there were actual zombie kills this week. And the situation they found themselves in seemed plausible given the context of the show. But the constant need to intermix the relationship between the two with the tasks at hand keep the show mired between full-on soap opera and fan-service comic book gore.

This week on “We’re finding stuff for us, but also for Negan, and now – oh yeah – some Garbage Trolls”, Rick & Michonne come across a combination carnival ground & army barracks.

They hop onto the roof to survey the scene, only to crash through it into the storeroom, where they find a whole heap of ready-to-eat rations – the chili and mac & cheese Hardwick was on about – and then decide to kill all the walkers they find because the soldiers still have their guns holstered and/or shouldered.

There’s the usual, ‘Well, it’s just you & me, kid’ million-to-one odds of fighting them all off,

a brief/typical moment where it looks like Glenn Rick is dead,

but surprise! He wasn’t!! Cue tearful reunion.

They load a bunch of food & guns into the truck and then head back to see the Heapsters (h/t Gizmodo) to live up to their end of the bargain. But then,

they suddenly want MOAR GUNZ! What is Rick to do?!

This new info fits in nicely with the “C” plot of the episode, Tara is feeling conflicted about Alexandria needing guns but her promise to the Oceanside women not to reveal them to anyone EVAR.

Tara practices telling Rick by heart-to-hearting with Judith,

who seems more interested in the dump she’s taking than Tara’s feelings. But Judith must’ve made psychic sense, because by the end of the episode we’re led to believe that she’s giving Rick the deets on the womyn & guns.

The “B” plot involved Rosita full of (self-) hatred and looking to go kill Negan now because she’s now into this waiting game, man! Since no one at Alexandria will help her, she decides to trek over to Hilltop to get Sasha on board, and brought her a sniper rifle as a sign of good faith. This is highly convenient, because Sasha also wants to kill Negan, because she too loved the man that she stole from Rosita. It’s also no coincidence that the lady playing Sasha is leaving the show to star in the new CBS “Star Trek” show, so it’ll totally work out hunting down Negan.

So, we are still trapped in the revolving episodes of finding supplies, and then finding out they have to find more supplies, only to find out they have been found out in their machinations.

Next week’s episode seems to be about The Kingdom, based on the promos.

I get that they have to flesh out how the war is going to build up. But, given the size of the cast now, it feels like they have spend too many episodes on too few characters, like they can only have Rick in 10 episodes because they can’t afford to pay him for 16. As long as they keep making money, I suppose, this is what we can expect from the show that invented the phrases “Fall Finale” and “Winter Premiere”.

There are four episodes left in the season, and only the season finale promises to have an actual shocking-type plot twist ahead. I wish I could say it’s going get better, but I can’t. Because the full-on violence we are expecting won’t happen until Season 8, and they’ll still find a way to drag out having the actual war until the “Winter Premiere” episode. Because they don’t want to waste that episode competing against “Football Night In America”.

To borrow a quote from my mother-in-law, “Because it’s on TV and not a thing I paid to go see, I can actually turn it off.” I actually enjoyed “Feud” – about Bette Davis & Joan Crawford – on FX better than TWD last night. I felt obligated to do the recap today, if only to stay consistent, not because I’m trying to feed the #content monster or that I’ll let people down. This is the first time I actually dreaded doing something on this site. Good job, AMC.

Good job.