The Walking Dead started its tenth season with a bang! How are the communities coping since their encounter with the Whisperers? Here’s our recap of “Lines We Cross”!
“Lines We Cross” begins with a satellite falling out of its orbit. This episode centers on this event. It’s a nice change from the pacing of seasons where an event took place over several different episodes. Another new addition to The Walking Dead is the title card sequences that separate scenes.
TRAINING DAY
Aaron gives orders, Daryl watches as they try out their new formation and technique on walkers. Alden straight-up acts like Finnick from The Hunger Games as he launches javelin into a walker’s head.
Eventually, the door gets too heavy for Ezekiel and Jerry to hold and crashes back causing all the walkers to escape. Everyone does exactly what they’re supposed to do, and all the walkers get taken care of. It’s insane and well choreographed.
These communities aren’t playing around anymore.
Back at Oceanside’s camp, Jules (a new girl) flirts with Luke. It’s cute.
Michonne says that training was worth the trip. Daryl agrees, says Tara would have been proud. She says that it’s good for the kids to see the ocean, too.
“Yeah, I know one idiot who would have loved this.”
As Judith is going through RJ’s seashells, she finds a Whisperer mask.
SKIN
The next scene shows us Aaron on the radio, explaining what was found, and how it might have gotten all the way to Oceanside. Aaron suggests that the ASZ goes on lockdown. Michonne disagrees, but says that they need to keep their eyes open.
“We don’t need to cause a panic.”
Aaron argues that no one saw Alpha leave, so they might not have seen her come back. Daryl says that he’ll catch up to them looking for her, and Michonne says:
“Tell her not to leave this time without saying bye.”
Who’s been running away? Carol?
On their recon mission, Aaron asks Michonne something that has been on all or minds for years:
“Michonne, are we the good guys?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“I think about it a lot. We’re the villains of someone else’s story. A threat to their survival. So dangerous they threaten to wipe us out. Makes you wonder sometimes.”
“I don’t give a shit about the Whisperers, and where they stand.”
“I’m not just talking about the Whisperers.”
And that’s our question for the season, and has been for the last few seasons, our group could be villains if we were watching this from another perspective.
With their radios, they find out that no one has seen anything around the area that would mean the Whisperers are back. Aaron sees a few walkers on the bridge and rides towards them. Michonne ends up having to save him. The title of the episode, “Lines We Cross” comes back because he’s entered into a space he shouldn’t have.
“If it was them, you could have died. If it wasn’t them, you could have died, and for what?”
Aaron lets go of his anger, and says that he’s so tired of being the nice guy. It’s gotten them nowhere.
When Michonne radios that they’ve seen nothing, Magna and Yumiko say they found something. It looks like the remnants of a Whisperer camp. What’s even worse…there are bodies all over the place. Moving further into camp, they find skin over a log.
At least one Whisperer crossed the border, but who knows how long ago that was.
Back in Oceanside, Michonne says they don’t need to let fear take over. They need to squash this before it gets too big.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier. About who we’ve become. Who we are. And the truth is, we are the good guys, and I know who Rick and Carl were, and Eric and Jesus, too. We have to choose to be the good guys even when its hard, and the minute that we start to question that, we lose sight of it, that’s when the answer to that question starts to change, and that’s scarier than any skin mask.”
After Aaron leaves, Michonne watches Judith tell R.J. the story of how the brave man (Rick) died.
R.J. wants to know why the man would sacrifice himself, and Michonne says that some people love others so much that they’d do anything to protect them. She makes a comment about doing that to protect him and Judith. R.J. asks if she’d do anything to protect their dad, and she says yes again.
Is this the foreshadowing for what Michonne will be doing when she leaves the flagship series? Or is “Lines We Cross” the start of
Suddenly, the satellite streaks across the sky, and Eugene is on the radio, wanting to talk to Michonne.
BIRD WISDOM
We flash back to the original transmission between Aaron and Gabriel at the ASZ. Eugene and Rosita are taking care of her baby, who apparently only likes music blasting. Eugene has been making graphs about the baby’s sleep, and Rosita is getting back into shape.
Gabriel is looking tired. Eugene is graphing and training everything. Saddiq humors Eugene, but says he probably won’t use any of the information.
When Gabriel comes in the room, it appears like he might tell them what’s going on…
At the school inside the ASZ, “Lines We Cross” shows us how Lydia is adjusting. She’s trying to read, but when a younger kid helps her with a word, she slams the book shut. She hasn’t read before, so why does she need to learn now?
The teacher tells her it will open a whole new world for her. They’re interrupted by a council meeting that needs the schoolroom.
Outside, Lydia’s practicing with her staff when Negan, who’s apparently gardening now, asks her if everything’s okay.
She says it’s the same as it was twenty minutes ago, then asks what he’s been doing in all the years he’s been here. The same people side-eye them both.
Negan’s guard tells him to get back to work, and Lydia walks closer to him.
“They’re on alert. They found a skin.”
He asks what that means, and Lydia says:
“You’ve been here longer. You tell me.”
“It means watch your back, kid.”
The council meeting ends, and they leave the school house/ church. When they get back to the house Saddiq lays the baby down to sleep, but as he’s walking away, we see that he’s dealing with PTSD of the night he was taken by the Whisperers.
The new doctor in town comes into the room, and snaps Saddiq out of it. This new doctor is sketchy as fuck. He refers them, doctors, as being Gods in this new world. Finally, he leaves and Saddiq lays the baby down again.
In his thoughts, he sees Alpha holding a bloody machete, and the scene transitions beautifully to Negan sitting his cell, almost like he’s opposite Alpha.
Gabriel asks him why he come in early. He’s been loving being outside and working, and Negan says:
“It’s starting.”
“Listen if you’ve got something to say, can you please just get to the point because I don’t have time for this today. Seriously.”
“Ah, Gabie boy, why don’t you just nestle in below me, and let me baby bird some of my wisdom into that pretty little mouth of yours.”
Okay. So, he’s still an asshole.
Negan tells Gabriel they get mixed up on who they hate. They used to hate him, but now he picks veggies and takes out trash. Until the Whisperers pass, he’s keeping his head down so he doesn’t get lumped into the “them” category again.
In true Negan fashion, he explains to Gabriel that he has to make people feel safe, even if it’s for show. Sort of like how he’s got someone following him around in case he decides to kill someone again.
Gabriel finally gets it, and asks Negan if he wants him to lie.
Not lying….
“Think of it as using the truth to manipulate, but hell, at the end of the day, if that’s what keeps people alive, what’s the harm?”
Gabriel leaves Negan, and tells everyone that for the night, they’ll lock the gate and double up security for the night.
That’s when the satellite bursts through the sky, and Eugene runs to the radio.
“Something of grave importance is about to happen.”
SEA DOGS
“Lines We Cross” picks back up with Daryl and Dog taking a walk down the beach.
Connie and Kelly are helping drag in a fishing net, when some yells for Kelly to watch her step. There’s some driftwood behind her, and she’s about to trip on it. The Oceanside person drops her net and stops Kelly from going any further.
When the person from Oceanside walks away, Connie goes to her sister. She asks if her hearing is getting worse, but Kelly says she’s fine. Sometimes there are alot of voices and noises, and she can’t figure out if someone is talking to her.
Connie hugs her and tells her that it’ll be okay.
“We’re gonna keep practicing, make sure you’re ready.”
“But who’s gonna take care of you, if I can’t interpret?”
“Who’s gonna take care of me? Please. We got this. You and me together…remember? It’s not a disability, it’s a damn superpower!”
Dog runs up and she pets him, and Kelly gives her a little look when she and Daryl smile at each other and wave.
Ohhhh, heyyyy. I’m here for it!
Daryl finds Ezekiel, and they talk about birds, and how they bother him. Daryl quips that birds don’t taste like chicken that’s for sure.
Connie comes up on the dock with Dog, and writes that Daryl was missing something. He signs back, poorly,
“No, he just likes you better.”
In a moment that stole my heart from my body, Connie writes back:
“Not bad. You sign with a Southern accent.”
“Really?”
A boat appears on the horizon, and after it docks, Ezekiel helps Carol down. Meanwhile, Connie and Daryl are still talking behind them. You can see that Daryl’s carrying around an American Sign Language book in his back pocket.
After an awkward interaction with Ezekiel, Carol hugs Connie and then Daryl.
“Did you miss me?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll take it.”
As they walk around Oceanside, Carol tells Daryl how sailing life is. She says that it’s hard work, but it’s nice. They went to the docks where Maggie was leaving the letters, but there was none there.
“It’s been a while since I heard from ya.”
“I told you fishing’s hard.”
“That’s not what I mean. You were looking for her, weren’t ya?”
“No.”
“Uh huh.”
“Honestly, no. I tried to forget everything that happened.”
Daryl tells her that they found one of their masks, and that Michonne took a group out. He wants to know if she wants to go looking, but she says no. She’s only there until the boat leaves again. He asks what she wants to do then.
They go for a bike ride through a portion of woods that was just cleaned out. They find a group of walkers and start killing them. Before she moves out on her own, he tells her to watch their hands.
NEW MEXICO
Daryl shoots a deer with his bow, and he and Carol track it down. It crosses a boundary, and Daryl tells her to stop. Walkers are already coming out of the woods anyway.
“Why are we still respecting borders we didn’t even agree to when Alpha isn’t even here? Can we just forget about them?”
Daryl says:
“It’s too late.”
The deer is being eaten by walkers, and Carol tells him it could have fed two-hundred people. Back at his bike, he tells Carol that he’s sorry he pissed her off, and she says that she’s sorry he did, too.
“Lines We Cross” focuses a lot on Daryl and Carol’s friendship, and his inability to pull her back from the edge. Carol still doesn’t understand why they’re letting the Whisperers control everything. She says that she shouldn’t have come back, and Daryl says that he’s been thinking about that.
“Why don’t you to come on home now?”
“And be around dogman? Why don’t you get off my ass before I put you on yours.”
“Sorry if I don’t want my best friend to spend her whole life on a boat.”
He shares some food with her and she picks at him about calling her his best friend. It escalates to her saying that she can make them matching bracelets, and even a matching collar for dog. Carol tells him to come out on the boat with her, but he tells her no. He doesn’t want to be cooped up in the cabins.
That’s when she turns it around, and says they can take the bike.
“Run away together?”
“Yeah, why not?”
They talk about how they’ve spent their lives fighting, and it always seems like they’re going from one fight to the next, even before the end of the world. They talk about going out west together, maybe New Mexico.
Daryl hands her some twine that looks like a friendship bracelet, and they sit in silence until the satellite comes over them, too.
LINES WE CROSS
The downed satellite has started a fire, and all the people from Oceanside cross the boundary line with the intent of putting it out.
Honestly, the fire is way too large, and it seems pointless at first. They start digging a ditch to prevent the fire from jumping, but walkers are starting to make their way to the noise and light.
Ezekiel is running himself into the ground. He’s determined to not let what happened to the Kingdom happen to Oceanside.
Morning arrives, the fire is still going, and walkers start pouring in.
EMBERS
The herd that starts to come through is too much for the people and the weapons the group has, but they fight anyway. Back up from the ASZ arrives, and the extra numbers help with the fire and the walkers.
One tree is almost about to fall, and Daryl hurls his ax into it, causing it to fall on several walkers.
They manage to put out the fire, but Eugene really wants to scavenge from the satellite. Michonne desperately wants to get out, but she gives him ten minutes.
Meanwhile, Carol and Daryl have gone to cliff where Alpha took him. There are no walkers in the valley, so I’m assuming this means they feel that Alpha hasn’t returned yet.
“Still want to run away together?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
“Look I need you to stay. Just think about it. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to punch holes in all them boats.”
“Lines We Cross” ends with Carol looking down into the pit, and she sees Alpha come out of the woods. They lock eyes, and that’s not good because she definitely knows they’ve crossed the line now.
What did you think of “Lines We Cross”? Keep up with this season of The Walking Dead every Sunday at 9/8c on AMC!