'The Walking Dead' Recap: 'My Services Are No Longer Required'

Warning: This recap for the “Twice As Far" episode of The Walking Dead contains spoilers.

Two more episodes remaining in Season 6, and even without Negan showing his face yet, we’re down two more Alexandrians — one permanently, one who maybe can be brought back by a man on a horse.

Just Another Day (and Another and Another) in Alexandria
Olivia’s taking inventory in the pantry, Gabriel’s walking through town with his gun slung over his shoulder, Eugene’s clocking in for his shift on guard duty at the front gate with Sasha beside him on the lookout platform, Morgan’s practicing with his bo staff, and Carol’s sitting on her porch swing, smoking a cigarette and playing with the rosary beads and cross she got during her time with The Saviors.

Then Morgan continues with his construction project. He’s building a jail cell.

“Morgan, why?” Rick asks while watching him work.

Morgan: “It’ll give us some choices next time.” As frustrating as his “peace, man” philosophy may be to some of his friends, at least Morgan puts his alt thinking (and hard labor) where his mouth is. Respect.

Next day, Olivia’s taking inventory in the pantry, Gabriel’s walking through town with his gun slung over his shoulder, Eugene’s clocking in for his shift on guard duty at the front gate with Sasha beside him on the lookout platform, Morgan’s practicing with his bo staff, and Carol’s sitting on her porch swing, playing with her rosary beads and cross and getting a kiss from Tobin.

Rosita is just waking up. She gets dressed, trying to be quiet and not wake the other person in the bed… who is Spencer. She looks sad, sighs, and grabs her boots and heads out the door of his house without saying a word to him.

Daryl, meanwhile, is beginning his morning with an inspection of his beloved motorcycle, which he just retrieved from The Saviors. He opens the zippered pouch on the bike and finds a little hand carved Army man, the work of “D,” the man who stole his ride back in “Always Accountable.” Carol wanders over to chat, and sits on a step and lights a cigarette, handing one to Daryl when he asks.

“Those people you met, the ones in the burnt forest, they took it from you?” she asks about his bike.

“Yeah.”

“You saved them, right?”

Daryl barely nods.

“Sorry, that’s who you are,” she tells him. “We’re still stuck with that.”

“No, we ain’t,” Daryl says. “I shoulda killed ‘em.”

Carol thinks about that for a bit, then walks away, leaving the cigarette pack behind for Daryl.

“Hey. The ones who took you and Maggie… what’d they do to you?” he asks Carol.

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“To us? They didn’t do anything.”

And the next day, Olivia’s taking inventory in the pantry (which now includes more goods), all’s quiet in the part of town where Gabriel usually walks by with his gun, Morgan’s concrete and iron bar jail cell looks finished, and Carol’s again sitting on her porch swing, holding her rosary beads and cross and filling an ashtray with cigarette butts.

Outside the front gate, Eugene and Abraham are leaving on foot, and Spencer is following Rosita as she walks towards Denise’s house. He asks her to dinner, where he promises to serve his beef jerky stroganoff. She says no. “It’s not exactly a nice porterhouse, but I promise it’s better than it sounds,” he offers. She’s not swayed. “What are we doing here?” he asks. “Just tell me. It’s good either way. It really is.”

“Okay …”

“’Okay’ is what we’re doing?” says Spencer, revealing he has surprisingly less game than we might have guessed, but is persistent and cute.

Rosita agrees to dinner.

Denise comes out of the house and assures Rosita she didn’t hear their conversation, though obviously she totally did. Rosita came to give Denise a weapons lesson, but Denise asks if they can do something else instead.

Denise and Daryl and Rosita
Denise wants to take a road trip, to Edison’s Apothecary and Boutique, a little strip mall shop she passed when she left her home after the apocalypse started. She thinks there may be medicine there. Rosita’s against, and calls in Daryl to consult. He asks Denise how she knows the meds would still be there. She doesn’t, she says, but the place isn’t far, and she’d like to check it out.

Daryl says he and Rosita will go. “I just want to help,” Denise says, insisting she’d like to go herself.

“How much time did you spend out there?” he asks her. “None,” Denise says. “Forget it,” says Daryl.

But Denise is determined, and threatens to go alone if they won’t accompany her. “You’ll die alone,” Daryl says. Denise: “I’m asking you to make sure I don’t.”

Daryl finally gives in, and the three of them head off in a noisy old truck. The transmission keeps jamming, and Denise tells him he may be shifting too quickly. Her brother taught her how to drive, and she’s been driving stick shifts, mostly old trucks, since she was 15. She also shares that her parents were alcoholics, which is why she does not partake of the bag of mini booze bottles Rosita finds. The trio has to stop the truck when they come upon a tree fallen across the road, so they take off on foot the rest of the way to Edison’s. Rosita wants to follow the railroad tracks, but Daryl wants to go another way, even though it’s twice as far.

“I ain’t takin’ no tracks,” he insists, and Denise tags along with him, while Rosita follows the tracks. When they meet up — Rosita was there way before D & D — Denise tells Rosita she didn’t mean to choose Daryl over her. She asks who taught Rosita how to fight.

“Lot of people taught me a lot of things,” Rosita says. “A long list of names.”

They arrive at the store, and it’s intact, although the front door is covered with the handprints of people who tried to get in, and there are dead bodies in the parking lot.

Abraham and Eugene’s Excellent Adventure
Abe and Eugene have arrived in a small town, and Abe notes Eugene’s sporting a ponytail: “I see you’ve tied back the Tennessee waterfall there.”

Eugene admits he may miss the full-on mullet, as the “feeling of the billowy curtain catching the breeze some days is straight-up bliss,” he says, but “the hair doesn’t make the man. The man makes the man.”

Abraham wonders about the changes in Eugene. Volunteering for guard duty, weapons training, the new ‘do … “Man seems to be changing, or at least trying like hell to… makes me curious what that’s about,” Abraham says. Is he suspicious that maybe Eugene is going to make a play for Rosita?

“It’s simple, really,” Eugene explains. “As with any RPG, tabletop, electronic or otherwise, the key to survival is allowing oneself to be shaped by the assigned environment, In doing so, a broad range of capabilities are acquired, allowing one to flip the script and use said capabilities to shape said environment for maximum longevity. I’m saying I’m in the process of said stage two. I’ve changed, adapted. I’m a survivor.”

Abraham looks him up and down, skeptically. “You keep telling yourself that.”

When the fellas arrive at their specific destination, Eugene breaks in. “Standard pin and tumbler… tick, tick, click, easy-peasy,” he says. Once inside, Abe wants him to “spill the pintos” on why they’re there. Eugene obliges: it’s a factory, and he wants to use it to manufacture bullets. They’ll use spent casings and re-pack them with a concoction of Eugene’s. As he points out, The Hilltop is out of ammo and the Alexandrians’ supply is running out. And “per the law of supply and demand, a full cartridge is now the coin of the land,” he continues. Abe asks if he really thinks he can pull that off. “I’ll have to scare up a hell of a ton of lead, but yes, I most definitely almost certainly think I can do that here,” Eugene says.

Abraham is impressed by his pal’s “damn fine, genuine outside the box think,” and wants to know how they get started, as soon as he kills a walker behind Eugene.

“Pump your brakes, Red,” says Eugene. “I’m formally calling dibs on this one.”

He tries with his machete to kill the walker, but after two attempts, Abraham steps in and does it. Eugene’s ticked off. “I called dibs! You had zero authority to…”

“To what? Stop you from dying?” Abe asks.

“I had full control of the situation,” Eugene insists, to which Abe replies he’d have better luck “picking up a turd by its clean end.” Eugene is not as amused by the line as we are, and tells Abe he’s going to allow him to apologize.

“Timmy down there almost ate your face, dumba–!” Abe barks.

Eugene: “Dispatching walkers is well within my skill set, so screw you for suggesting otherwise… Thank you for your protection. I most certainly needed it between here and Houston. But your services are no longer required. The truth, plain and honest: you’ve outlived your usefulness to me.”

A shocked Abraham takes off, and Eugene asks where he’s going.

“Home,” Abe says. “My services are no long required. Find your own way back, a–hole.”

Denise and Dennis (and Daryl and Rosita and Eugene and Abraham)
Denise, Daryl, and Rosita enter Edison’s, which is still full of supplies, including a slew of medicines. Daryl and Rosita load up all of the drugs, while Denise flips through a rack of keychains with names on them. She wanders into a little room in back, and sees a gruesome sight: a walker, wearing a cast on its leg, and, in a sink full of blood, what looks like a children’s shoe. The words “HUSH” is written on the walls over and over. Denise runs out of the store and sits on the ground, holding on to a keychain with the name Dennis on it. She gets teary as Daryl and Rosita come out of the store and see her.

“Hey. You did good finding this place,” Daryl says.

Rosita tells Denise she tried to tell her she wasn’t ready to be outside Alexandria.

As they walk back to the truck, Denise tells them more about her family. Her brother was older than her… by six minutes. “My parents came up with the whole Dennis/Denise thing on one of their benders,” she tells Daryl. “Hilarious, right?”

She says Dennis was brave, afraid of nothing. But he was angry, too, making for a dangerous combination. “Sounds like we had the same brother,” Daryl says. When they get to the railroad tracks, Daryl starts to walk towards them. “This way’s faster, right?” he says to a surprised Rosita. Daryl Dixon, you old softie!

When the trio passes a bunch of abandoned cars, Denise stops and spots a cooler inside one of the cars. It’s also the car with a live walker inside, and Daryl and Rosita tell her it’s not worth the effort to get to the cooler, no matter what could be inside it. Denise ignores that, and opens the car door. The walker inside comes at her, and nearly bests her. Daryl and Rosita run over, but Denise yells at them to let her handle it. She finally stabs the walker in the head, and gets the cooler. Inside: a six-pack of soda, including one can of Orange Crush. Denise is happy.

Daryl is not, and yells at her for risking her life for a can of soda. Denise yells back, saying they could have died fighting The Saviors. “You wanna live, you take chances,” she tells them. “Do you have any clue what that was to me? What this whole thing is to me? See, I have training in this s–t,” she says, referring to her psychiatry training. “I’m not making it up as I go along, like with the stitches, and the surgery…”

She tells Daryl she asked him to go on this road trip because he’s brave, like her brother, and “sometimes you actually make me feel safe.” And to Rosita: “I wanted you here, because you are alone. Probably for the first time in your life. And because you’re stronger than you think you are, which gives me hope that maybe I can be, too.” Denise tells them she could have gone with Tara, and she could have told her she loved her, but she was too afraid to do either.

“That’s what’s stupid,” she says. “Not coming out here, not facing my s–t, and it makes me sick that you guys aren’t even trying, because you’re strong and you’re smart, and you’re both really good people, and if you don’t wake…”

And that’s when an arrow comes flying through her head. Through her head, in the back and out through her right eye.

“… up and face your…” Denise continues, until she falls and Daryl tries to catch her, as he and Rosita realize what’s happening. They take out their guns, and several men, at least a dozen, come out of the woods. Their leader: “D,” Daryl’s old nemesis from the burnt forest, who’s now sporting a half-burnt face. He’s also holding Eugene as a hostage, and immediately recognizes Daryl. “Well, hell,” he says. “You got something to say to me? You wanna clear the air? Step up on that high horse? No, you don’t talk much. [holding up Daryl’s bow] Still getting the hang of her. Kicks like a b—h, but, uh…”

Daryl’s nearly shaking with anger. “I should’ve done it,” he says. “I shoulda killed you.”

“Yeah, you probably should’ve,” D says. “So, here we are. Kinda begs the question, right? Who brought this on who? I mean, I get that you’ll just have to take my word for this, but she wasn’t even the one I was aiming for. Like I said, she kicks like a b—h. It’s nothing personal. Look, this isn’t how we like to start new business arrangements, but you pricks kinda set the tone, didn’t you?”

Watch Josh McDermitt recap the 5 WTF Moments from this episode:

D’s men have taken Daryl and Rosita’s weapons, and Eugene, on his knees at Dwight’s side, looks terrified. Rosita wants D to cut to the chase; what does he want? After getting her name, and telling her she can call him “D” or Dwight, he says he and his pals want to be brought to Alexandria, where they will take whatever, and whoever, they want. If they don’t get their way, they’ll kill Eugene, then Rosita, then Daryl.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that. Really,” Dwight says. “Nobody else has to die. Just try to start with one, you know, maximum impact to get our point across,” he continues, spouting The Saviors philosophy. “So, what’s it gonna be? You tell me.”

Eugene, who just spotted Abraham hiding behind some barrels behind where Dwight’s men are, answers. “You wanna kill someone, you start with our companion hiding over there behind those oil barrels. He’s a first class a–hole, and he deserves it so much more than us three.”

Dwight tells his men to check it out, and while they’re sneaking up on Abraham, Eugene leans over and sinks his teeth into Dwight’s crotch. Dwight screams, Abraham runs off to the other side of the scene and starts shooting Dwight’s crew, and in the chaos, Daryl and Rosita retrieve their guns and start blasting. The gunfire draws some walkers to the mix, and Eugene isn’t letting go of Dwight’s crotch. Dwight eventually gets free, and with several of his men down, he yells for the rest to fall back.

Daryl, Rosita, and Abraham — whose history allowed them to continue to work together so perfectly, despite the recent breakup — carry Denise’s body to the truck, and Eugene, who was grazed by a bullet. When they get back to Alexandria, Rosita says Eugene will be fine, and that he will be spared from infection, maybe even death, because of the antibiotics Denise found.

That begs the question, to go back to Dwight, of cause and effect… Eugene wouldn’t have needed the drugs if they hadn’t been out there and caught by Dwight. Or if Daryl had killed Dwight back in the burnt forest, something that’s surely swimming through Daryl’s head as he hears Rosita talk about the medicine they have because of Denise.

Eugene wakes up, and tells Abe he was not trying to get him killed. “I was looking for a moment,” he explains. Then he asks Abe if he apologizes for questioning his skills.

“I apologize for questioning your skills,” Abraham says. “You know how to bite a dick, Eugene. I mean that with the utmost of respect. Welcome to stage two.”

Abraham is looking for a moment of his own, and ends up on the sidewalk in front of Sasha’s house. She comes out on the porch, and he tells her, “You said I had choices. You have ‘em, too. Could be 30 years for us here. That’s still too short.”

She looks teary, and nods her head just slightly. “Come inside,” she tells him.

Daryl has a far less happier ending, as Carol helps him bury Denise. Daryl downs one of the small bottles of alcohol Rosita found, and holds on to Denise’s Dennis keychain.

“You were right,” Carol tells him. “I knew it when you said it.”

Goodbye, Carol
And that’s why Carol runs away from Alexandria. She writes a letter for Tobin, apologizing for leaving him. “We have so much here, people, food, medicine, walls,” she says in voiceover, as Tobin reads her note. “Everything we need to live. But what we have, other people want, too. And that won’t ever change. If we survive this threat, it’s not over. Another one will be there to take its place, to take what we have. I love you all here, I do. And I’d have to kill for you, and I can’t. I won’t. Rick sent me away, and I wasn’t ever gonna come back, but everything happened, and I wound up staying. But I can’t anymore. I can’t love anyone, because I can’t kill for anyone. So I’m going, like I always should have. Don’t come after me, please.”

Life in Alexandria rolls on, meanwhile.

The town’s weapons and ammo stash is taken from the pantry, and moved to… where? Maybe locked away in Morgan’s cell?

Rosita takes a shift of guard duty at the front gate, with Sasha beside her on the lookout platform. Think there’s a confrontation, or at least a very uncomfortable discussion, brewing between the two of them?

And people are reinforcing the walls of the town, and Morgan’s outside with his bo staff, staring at Carol’s empty porch swing. Now that she’s come around to his way of thinking, but left town because of it, will he go off to find her and try to coax her back to Alexandria? Is that what he’s doing in the Season 6 promo photo where he’s riding a horse outside the town?

Zombie Bites:

* That haunting song playing after the shootout with Dwight and his men: “Chapel” by Nicole Dollanganger.

O.K., Dead-heads, let’s hear your reactions to “Twice As Far”: Daryl’s feeling the loss of Denise, and probably blaming himself for not killing Dwight earlier… How is he going to react to Carol leaving town? Do we think Negan is behind Dwight’s half-fried face? And new couples Spencer and Rosita and Abraham and Sasha… thumbs up for more love in the apocalypse?

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC .