Crossed

"Crossed" is the seventh episode of Season 5 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It aired on November 23, 2014 at 9/8c on AMC, and on November 24, 2014 at 9pm on Fox.

Plot Synopsis
The group is building the church's defenses. Daryl returns with Noah and tells him about Atlanta. Rick tells Michonne that he can't let Carl go to Atlanta and that he has to stay behind. Michonne tells him that she should go and that Rick should stay. However, Rick tells her that he owes Carol and that he has to leave. Michonne ends up staying behind with Carl, Judith, and Gabriel. Gabriel looks at the blood stains on the floor and tries to scratch them off. Sasha and Tyreese sit in the back of the box truck and Tyreese tries to talk to Sasha. She gives him the cold shoulder.

Once in Atlanta, Rick lays out his plan. Fire a shot in the air, draw a couple of them out. Kill them. Break in the building. Kill the guards. Keep it quiet. Fan out and kill everyone. Tyreese worries about what happens if things go wrong and offers an alternate plan: capture two cops and trade them. Rick says that Tyreese's plan is okay, but insists that his own plan will work for sure. Daryl sides with Tyreese, saying that he wants everyone to live through it. Rick doesn't say anything, he goes along with it though.

The group take action. Noah fires a shot and lures a patrol around a corner. When they get out of the car and zip-tie Noah, Rick and the gang surround them, disarm them, have them kneel, and cuff them. One of the cops, Lamson, recognizes that Rick talks like a cop and says he was a cop before the apocalypse as well. Just as Noah is telling Rick that Lamson is a good man, another squad car arrives. The officer inside lays down cover fire while Lamson and Shepherd get in his car. As they try to get away Sasha shoots out their back tire.

The group chases them around a corner where the car is now deserted. There is a group of burnt walkers - "survivors" from the napalm bombing of Atlanta - on the ground. Rick sees Lamson and his partner running behind a building and they take off after them, leaving Daryl behind, who heard someone else. Daryl gets jumped by the officer on back up and a fight ensues, ending up on the ground by the melted walkers. On his back, Daryl grabs the head of one of the walkers, sticks his fingers in its eye sockets, rips its head clean off, and beats the officer with it. Rick shows up and is about to kill the officer but Daryl stops him and talks him out of it; three hostages are better than two.

As they take the backup officers into custody, the female officer them tells them that they can help, if they tell them what they want to do. She proceeds to tell them that Dawn won't trade for them since she doesn't like them, so they should just let them go and they'll take care of Dawn for her. Sasha and Tyreese pillage the officers' car when Sasha rips Bob’s shirt that she wears. Tyreese comforts her. As the group gets ready to leave, Lamson is coaching Rick on what Dawn will say. Rick asks if there’s anything he needs before they go. Lamson replies water, and Sasha goes to bring some.

With the group gone, Sasha talks to Lamson. He confesses to Sasha that he knew one of the walkers out in the parking lot. She relaxes a little and sits down, as he tells her that it was an officer that died when he went on a call that he should have gone on. Sasha offers to mercy kill him if Lamson can show her where he is. They go to the window, and Lamson describes his friend. He stands behind her and, when Sasha attention is firmly on the walker that he points out, he knocks her out and heads to the exit.

Eugene is still out cold in the road. Tara labels the water bottles and then refers to the group as a band of brothers. Rosita attempts to talk to Abraham. He smacks the water bottle out of her hands and then jumps to his feet and gets in her face when she starts yelling. Maggie pulls her gun on him with complete conviction. He recognizes it and sits back down. Out of water, they decide to head to a stream, leaving Maggie with Abraham and Eugene. Maggie uses a ladder and a blanket to build a lean-to for Eugene, giving him some shade. Then she goes and tells Abraham to get over himself.

At the stream, Glenn fills a water bottle and despairs at how muddy it is. Rosita makes a water filter to get the dirt out and says that Eugene taught her how to do it. She then relates how she came to be with Abraham and Eugene. As she finishes her story, they see ripples in the water, indicating fish. They go back to scavenge a couple of walkers they saw trapped under a utility pole. They rip their jackets apart for nets and Tara frees a muddy backpack. Rosita and Glenn manage to catch a fish. Rosita says she can clean the fish and Glenn tells her that they can use that skill, wherever they end up. Tara finds a yo-yo. She is delighted...

At the truck, Maggie goes to give water to Abraham. “Did you want me to shoot you?” she asks. “I thought I did. But I didn’t.” Maggie leaves the water by Abraham as Eugene wakes up. As she tends to Eugene, Abraham picks up the water bottle.

At the hospital, Dawn is dealing with her officer’s inability to find Noah. Beth listens in. When the conversation turns to Carol, and the officer wants to let Carol die, Beth interrupts on Carol’s behalf. Her outburst forces Dawn to tell the officer to pull the plug on Carol. When the officer leaves, Dawn gives Beth a key to the drug locker and tells her to save Carol. Beth goes to Dr. Edwards and asks him what medicine would save Carol, he tells her "epinephrine", the dose and how to administer it. He also warns her that if Dawn gave her the key that she didn't do so out of the kindness of her heart. He tells her good luck and sits back down.

Beth enacts her plan to get the drugs to save Carol. She trades strawberries to an older man who in turn feigns breathing problems to draw all the guards. Beth gets into the drug locker, takes what she needs and walks back by the older man and the guards, and the older man immediately feels better. Beth administers the epinephrine and waits for Carol to wake up, holding her hand. “I just wanted you to know I was here,” she tells an unconscious Carol.

As they finish their defense-building duties, Carl wants Gabriel to learn how to use a weapon. "You can't stay in one place anymore," Carl says. Gabriel picks up a machete and Carl starts instructing him in the finer points of head stabbing but it's too much for Gabriel and he goes into his office to lie down.

Michonne checks on Gabriel, who says he was resting but he doesn't open the door very wide. Michonne reassures him that the things they do are worth it. When he closes the door, it is shown that Gabriel had pried floor boards with the machete.

Gabriel hops down into the crawl space and squeezes out of the church. He accidentally steps on a nail, but manages to hobble off. Gabriel gets jumped by a walker. He picks her up and slams her to the ground. Before he can bash her head in with a giant rock, he sees the cross around her neck and can’t go through with it. He leaves her there and heads off through the woods.

Co-Stars

 * Ricky Wayne as Officer O'Donnell
 * Teri Wyble as Officer Shepherd
 * Christopher Matthew Cook as Officer Licari
 * Marc Gowan as Percy

Uncredited

 * Charlotte & Clara Ward as Judith Grimes
 * Jarod Thompson as Officer Tanaka
 * Sammy Hadid as Officer Alvarado

Deaths
None

Trivia

 * First appearance of Bob Lamson.
 * First appearance of Licari
 * First appearance of Percy.
 * This episode marks Andrew Lincoln's 50th appearance on The Walking Dead.
 * This is the first episode of Season 5 to feature all credited series regulars.
 * The episode's title refers to Rosita explaining how she met Abraham, and how they crossed paths.
 * It also refers to Sasha being double-crossed by one of the officers of they captured, in addition to the crosses in the rear windows of the cars driven by his fellow officers of Grady Memorial Hospital.
 * Tara calls her group a "band of brothers", referencing the show of the same name that starred Michael Cudlitz.
 * Tara labels the caps of the water bottles individually with the letters "GREATM", which is an acronym for the names of Tara's group members. (Glenn, Rosita, Eugene, Abraham, Tara, Maggie).
 * In this episode, the full effects of the firebombing of Atlanta (as shown in a flashback in "Chupacabra") at the onset of the apocalypse are seen.
 * The melted street walkers in Atlanta were a combination of dummies and half-buried actors.
 * The cast were unaware that some of them were real until they started moving.
 * The walker's head that Daryl ripped off was rigged so that the spine would move afterward. There were controls for the spine inside of the eye sockets that his fingers were in.