Always Accountable

Plot

Daryl (Norman Reedus), Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) arrive at the 20-mile where Rick believes the walker parade will continue away from Alexandria without further intervention. They turn left on Route 642 to head back home but are soon ambushed by a group of gun-wielding assailants in cars. As they flee, Daryl is separated and crashes his motorcycle. Sasha and Abraham soon crash their car and emerge from the wreckage with guns blazing. They defeat their attackers but Sasha convinces Abraham to flee when they hear reinforcements arriving. Daryl eludes his attackers and quietly walks his motorcycle through a burnt-out path through a forest littered with charred walker bodies. He tries to radio Sasha and Abraham but gets no response. He hides his motorcycle under a pile of branches and finds a pair of sisters, Tina (Liz E. Morgan) and Sherry (Christine Evangelista), who pretend to surrender, diverting Daryl's attention so he is blindsided by Dwight (Austin Amelio).

As Daryl drifts in and out of consciousness, he sees his captors rummage through his supplies. Dwight pegs Daryl as a soldier from an outpost: one of the men who originally attacked them on Route 642. He wakes Daryl at gunpoint the next morning. Daryl insists he isn't who they think he is, but the man doesn't believe him. As they march through the woods, Dwight declares that they are not returning to the community they came from, because they don't want to "kneel" anymore. Dwight lays out a plan to find "Patty" and then leaves immediately. He describes how he and Sherry burned the path through the forest to attract and kill the walkers, and later joined up with a community, thinking naïvely that they would rebuild society together. Daryl tries to convince Dwight to let him go to no avail.

They eventually arrive at a gated fuel station but find it is full of walkers and start to panic when they notice that "Patty" is gone. As Tina collapses, Daryl takes the opportunity to grab their duffel bag with his gear and escape into the woods. He again tries to radio Sasha and Abraham without luck, then finds a cooler of insulin in the duffel bag, realizing that Tina is a diabetic who could die without it.

Meanwhile, Sasha and Abraham deduce that their attackers had intended to ambush someone else. Sasha insists that Daryl will try to regroup with them and that a tracker like Daryl has a better chance of finding them if they stay in one place. Sasha writes "Dixon" on the door of an auto insurance office where they decide to wait. Abraham eagerly takes out his knife to slay a walker down the block but Sasha warns him against leaving evidence for the attackers to trace their whereabouts. Inside the building, Sasha situates herself in an office as a walker pounds on the glass wall of an adjacent conference room. She asks Abraham if he wants to sleep or stand watch, with him opting for the latter.

Later, Abraham tells Sasha that he's eager to kill the walker in the conference room. Sasha calls him out for being reckless, telling him that everyone is accountable for their choices. Abraham shrugs her off and insists on standing watch throughout the night.

Back in the woods, Daryl forces Dwight to hand over his handgun and a wooden figurine that the man had carved in trade for Tina's insulin. They're interrupted by the arrival of men in a truck. Wade (Darin Cooper), the leader of the assailants, orders Dwight and the two girls to return what they took. After Daryl helps them flee and gives their gun back to Dwight, he lures one of Wade's men into the path of a walker, which bites the man. Wade hacks off the man's arm and calls off the search while talking on the radio to another man in their group. "He only wanted to take this so far," Wade tells his men. "He only wants ass that's willing."

The next morning, Abraham finds an abandoned Humvee containing RPG's and a box of cigars. He spots a walker impaled on a bridge fence and eyes the RPG launcher slung over its shoulders. Abraham climbs onto the fence to get the launcher, dangling precariously over the edge and grappling face-to-face with the walker, tearing his shirt and pants in the process. The walker snaps at him and Abraham yells in frustration, giving up as he cannot reach it without getting bitten. Calming himself, Abraham returns to the Humvee and pushes the case of RPG's back to sit and smoke a cigar. As he does so, he watches the impaled walker as it continues to struggle in agitation, its rotted shoulder eventually giving way under its own weight so it falls off the post leaving behind the launcher dangling by its strap. Abraham brings the RPG back to the office and admits to Sasha that she was right about his recklessness. He commends her for calling him on his bullshit and declares he would like to get to know her better.

Daryl's group comes across a burnt and melted greenhouse, in which Tina recognizes two dead people encased in melted glass. As she lays flowers at their side, the corpses suddenly awake and startle her. As a result, Tina breaks both glass enclosures (first the right one, then the left), freeing the walkers on either side of her. The latter attack the girl and kill her, after which Daryl puts down the walkers.

Daryl and Dwight dig a grave for Tina, during which Daryl asks him the same three questions used to recruit new people to the prison: How many walkers have you killed, how many people have you killed, and why. Satisfied with Dwight's answers, Daryl invites the couple to come live in Alexandria, not giving details about its name or location. After he brings Dwight and Sherry to his motorcycle, Dwight turns his gun on Daryl and forces him to hand over the crossbow. Dwight and Sherry get on the motorcycle and ride off. Later, Daryl finds a fuel truck in the woods branded "A.A. Pattrick Fuel Co." Its license plate reads "PATTY002". He kills the walker in the cab and drives it out of the woods, where he meets up with Sasha and Abraham (now wearing a partial, unadorned Army dress uniform found in the office). Together, they drive down the road in the fuel truck, where Daryl tries to radio Rick. After hearing some static, Daryl tries again and they make out an unidentified voice faintly replying "help".

Critical reception

The episode received positive reviews from critics. It currently holds a 87% rating with an average score of 6.6 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critical consensus: "Something of a filler episode for The Walking Dead, 'Always Accountable' comes to life in its final moments with an exciting cliffhanger." Matt Fowler of IGN, gave it a 7.3 out of 10 in his review and commented, "Time for characters to reflect on shock and tragedy. It's the way this show works. It's what this story demands." Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave it a B+ and wrote, "Most of what happens in 'Always Accountable' is about laying the groundwork for the future. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the final seconds."

Ratings

The episode averaged a 6.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 12.871 million viewers overall, an increase from the previous episode, which averaged a 6.2 rating and 12.44 million viewers overall.