On a roll! Two episodes in a row now and The Walking Dead continues its recent run of form with the new offering “Forget”. Best you go watch this now because I’m about to recap everything that happened, spoilers and all.

Last week I mentioned that Rick’s new no-nonsense attitude may be setting him on the course to be the next “bad guy”. After this episode, I’m willing to bet on it. Between him and Carol, I’m scared about what will happen. Carol threatening sneaky Sam was the most uncomfortable and riveting minute and a half of the entire series, but it doesn’t bode well for her future as a good person. Meanwhile Rick wasn’t much better – kissing a married woman and reaching for a gun after seeing her husband – this is exactly how Shane got to be how he was.

So Rick, Carol, and Daryl start the episode by deciding that the best contingency strategy for when things go wrong is to steal a gun each (despite Rick already carrying one). They never mention what “going wrong” means and, with Rick and Carol looking worse and worse, I do believe they mean to use it on people. As predicted, Carol’s new useless den mother persona is a front, and while it is good to see that she is still the strong character we know and love, it is going to make it extremely uncomfortable should they ever come under attack and she morphs into the badass we know she is. She notes that in here she has once again become “invisible”, chatting with women about cooking and playing the unskilled shooter to creepy man Tobin. She uses this invisibility to perfection as well – successfully stealing the weapons after the aforementioned minute and a half threat fest.

Rick’s also being shady, though he is more overt and starts when Deanna decides to throw a party with the entire community. Despite all the people we see, we only really meet two new characters, Spencer, Deanna son no. 2, and Reg (mentioned last week as the architect of the wall and Deanna’s husband). The new characters seem unimportant, and we quickly find ourselves watching Rick and Jessie flirting some more, though this time it’s in full view of Jessie’s doctor husband, Pete. He’s an arse, controlling, and arrogant, but even so, Rick eventually kissing Jessie is not cool; even though it is nice to see Rick interact romantically with someone he actually has chemistry with. What changes the relationship from bad to worse was the scene the next day. Upon seeing Jessie and Pete, there’s a much emphasized shot of Rick fingering his ill begotten weapon, after which he very creepily hugs the wall while “Spicks and Specks” by the Bee Gees played in the background – an incredibly compelling and creepy scene and a great way to end the episode – Rick is losing it.

Thankfully, Daryl seems to still be on the up and up after a nice walk with Aaron. Further fanning the Daryl-is-gay flames, Aaron uses his status as an outsider to relate to him. Daryl, as always, proves he’s just a big ol’ softy, and upon tracking the wild horse Buttons, attempts to capture the free runner, but is interrupted by walkers. While the Daryl-is-Buttons metaphor was overplayed terribly, it did well in characterizing Aaron, who’s now officially the first Alexandria character I care about. This all leads to Daryl officially receiving his new job as Alexandria’s other recruiter, plus he gets a new bike to work with. As a result he doesn’t take the gun that was stolen for him, and it seems like he’s going to start trying.

It’s not all about our main trio though. Sasha’s not doing too well; shooting up photographs and hearing voices in the woods, she seems against forming any connections or feeling happy after Bob and Tyreese. Her anxiety comes to a head at the party where she berates someone for being worried about cooking the wrong food, an understandable gripe, but one she handled rather poorly. Michonne, on the other hand, is doing rather well. The symbolism of the sword is also one that was overused but served to show that she’s going all in with the Alexandria crew, swapping her katana for a cocktail sword. We saw a little of Abraham, Maggie, Glenn, Rosita, and Noah, who seem to be slow to accept their new positions but they do seem to be trying. We end the episode with Sasha walking out of Alexandria, claiming it’s “not real”, and Rick’s previously mentioned fence hugging moment – the sun in his life most certainly seems to be dead.

Other points I found interesting:

Abraham, the “big man”, took comic relief duty today, much better when it’s shared like this.

No-one guards the wall? Damn these people are lucky.

Should start putting odds out on which character kick-starts the next conflict; Sasha, Rick, Carol, or Daryl?

Way too many creepy older guys in Alexandria.

Another walker with a carved W – I don’t even know.

The trip to Alexandria, at least for the moment, has been a tremendous change of pace for the show. Whether it gets blown up the next episode or we’re here for the foreseeable future, the character depth we’ve seen over the last two episodes needs to continue. This setting has allowed for another episode I loved; less action and more character development. I almost wish we’d gotten to Alexandria a week earlier because it’s episode 13 and this peace won’t last much longer. When it hits the fan, and we see how things end up, I really hope it’s not Rick with blood on his hands.