The Well

"The Well" is the second episode of the seventh season of AMC's The Walking Dead. It is the eighty-fifth episode of the series overall. It premiered on October 30, 2016, at 9/8c on AMC, and on October 31, 2016, at 9pm on Fox. It was written by Matt Negrete and directed by Greg Nicotero.

Plot
Following a number of familiar faces, we are introduced to a new well-established community that seems too good to be true.

Synopsis
Carol regains consciousness in the bed of a horse drawn wagon. Her wounds are fresh; it’s been a couple hours since she was shot by Roman. The men on horseback, who previously offered to get Carol medical assistance, lead the way. Morgan walks alongside the wagon. Carol falls back asleep.

She awakens, disoriented; she sees Morgan fighting walkers with help from the men on horseback. She confuses walkers for humans in her hallucinatory state. Weak and distraught, she sneaks away. She comes across a cemetery and approaches the caretaker’s abandoned cottage. An Older Woman beckons her through the window… then Carol suddenly realizes the Old Woman is a decrepit walker and she’s surrounded by walkers. Several people ride in on horseback, just in time to kill the walkers. Morgan and Carol join their group. Morgan raises the flag on the mailbox.

Carol wakes up in a bed. Morgan tells her she’s been asleep for two days.

Outside, Morgan pushes Carol in a wheelchair and tells her they’re in a community called The Kingdom. Carol takes in her surroundings: kids play in the streets,residents water gardens.

Morgan predicts she’ll need a week to recuperate from her injuries, at which point they can return to Alexandria. He tells her The Kingdom is run by a man who calls himself King Ezekiel, but hedges on any more specifics.

Morgan wheels Carol into a theater auditorium. Ezekiel sits on a throne with his tiger, Shiva, chained at his side. Ezekiel dramatically introduces himself to Carol and welcomes her to The Kingdom. Carol, in the meek persona she used with the Alexandrians, pretends to be in awe of The Kingdom. Ezekiel offers her fruit, suggesting she at least take the pomegranate; Carol politely declines and thanks Ezekiel.

When they leave the theatre, Carol tells Morgan The Kingdom is a circus and vows to leave. Morgan refuses to let her venture out on her own.

Morgan, Ezekiel and a small team leave The Kingdom in two trucks. They hunt pigs in a nearby city, corralling them into a building where a tied up walker awaits. The pigs devour the walker. Ezekiel turns to one of his men, Richard, and tells him it’s a job well done. Richard states, “it’s just what we needed.” Morgan asks why they bait the pigs with walkers. Richard says that he wants their bellies “full of rot.”

Walkers approach Ezekiel’s group. Richard instructs Benjamin, a teenage boy, to kill a nearby walker with a machete. Benjamin struggles with the walker; Ezekiel unsheathes his sword and stabs it in the head. Richard tells Morgan to keep the pig hunt a secret from The Kingdommers.

Back at The Kingdom, Ezekiel praises Morgan’s skill with the fighting stick and asks him to train Benjamin. Morgan agrees.

Carol sits in bed and stares at her wheelchair. Music filters in from a nearby choir practice.

Morgan trains Benjamin in a gazebo.

Carol wheels herself around The Kingdom and quietly steals a knife from a crafting table. She distracts a man who’s folding laundry and steals some clothes from the table.

Morgan and Benjamin take a break from training. Benjamin asks Morgan to loan him his book, The Art of Peace, and Morgan agrees. Ezekiel approaches and asks them to join him. Richard tells Morgan to bring his gun.

Morgan, Ezekiel and a small team wait in a parking lot with a shipment of slaughtered pigs. A group of Saviors arrives. Gavin, the leader, counts the pigs and is pleased to find that they’re bigger than the last shipment. Richard remarks that they fed the pigs well. When Dianne, a Kingdommer, starts explaining to Morgan who the Saviors are, he interjects, “I know who they are.”

As they load up the trucks, a Savior Jared picks a fight with Richard. Ezekiel orders his people to lower their weapons and Gavin tells Jared to stop punching Richard and reminds him on how good Ezekiel has been to them. Gavin reminds Ezekiel that the following week is a produce week. He warns Ezekiel that Richard will be the first to die if they deliver less than requested.

Back at The Kingdom, Morgan eats in the cafeteria with Benjamin and Henry, Benjamin’s younger brother. Benjamin tells Morgan that Ezekiel was close friends with his father, a strong fighter who died while clearing walkers from a building. He explains that Ezekiel is keeping the deal with The Saviors a secret because he’s worried that residents would want to fight, despite being outmatched. He asks if Morgan is against killing, having read the pacifist inscription in The Art of Peace. “Sometimes we change our minds,” Morgan says.

Morgan brings food to Carol’s room and finds it empty.

That night, Ezekiel catches Carol picking fruit from the garden as she prepares to leave The Kingdom. She adopts her demure persona and Ezekiel tells her not to bullshit a bullshitter.“You’re a joke,” she tells him. He reverts to his normal voice and confesses that he’s putting on an act and that Shiva, contrary to heroic stories that residents have told about him, is a tiger that he nursed back to health when he was a zookeeper. He explains that people wanted to ascribe him a leadership role because it’s human nature for them to feel safer when they have someone to follow, and that he used to play kings in theatre. He tells her the only part of the act which is true is that he really is called Ezekiel. “I just want to go,” Carol says. Ezekiel encourages her to embrace life and suggests a plan that would allow her to “go and not go.”

The next day, Morgan sees Carol to the cemetery. At the caretaker’s cottage, Morgan lowers the flag on the mailbox and rides back to town.

Carol enters the cottage and kills the Old Woman Walker. She buries her outside, by the graves.

Carol stokes a fire in her new home. There’s a knock at the door; it’s Ezekiel and Shiva. He offers her a pomegranate, telling her how good they are. She smiles.

Co-Stars

 * Daniel Newman as Daniel
 * Cooper Andrews as Jerry
 * Kerry Cahill as Dianne
 * Joshua Mikel as Jared
 * Jayson Warner Smith as Gavin
 * Jason Burkey as Kevin
 * Macsen Lintz as Henry
 * Carlos Navarro as Alvaro

Choir

 * Jule Culotta as Kingdom Choir
 * Jelani Watkins as Kingdom Choir
 * Stephen Pepper as Kingdom Choir
 * Erin Barksdale as Kingdom Choir
 * Madalyn Hardwick as Kingdom Choir
 * Devon Higgins as Kingdom Choir
 * Taylor Conley as Kingdom Choir
 * Will Nichols as Kingdom Choir

Uncredited

 * Stephen Rinehardt as "Kingdom Resident"
 * Roy Coulter as "Kingdom Resident"
 * Blaine Rincon as "Savior"
 * Unknown as Colton
 * Unknown as Older Woman

Deaths

 * 1 horse from The Kingdom
 * 8 pigs from The Kingdom
 * Benjamin's father (Confirmed Fate)
 * 7 unnamed Kingdom survivors (Confirmed Fate)
 * Older Woman (Zombified)

Trivia

 * First appearance of The Kingdom.
 * First appearance of Ezekiel.
 * First appearance of Shiva.
 * First appearance of Benjamin.
 * First appearance of Richard.
 * First appearance of Jerry.
 * First appearance of Dianne.
 * First appearance of Jared.
 * First appearance of Gavin.
 * First appearance of Kevin.
 * First appearance of Henry.
 * First appearance of Alvaro.
 * As of this episode, Alanna Masterson (Tara Chambler), Josh McDermitt (Eugene Porter), and Christian Serratos (Rosita Espinosa) have been added to the opening credits.
 * Also, as of this episode Steven Yeun (Glenn Rhee) and Michael Cudlitz (Abraham Ford) have been removed from the opening credits.
 * This episode was originally the third episode of Season 7 before being swapped with "The Cell".
 * The title of the episode comes from Ezekiel's rule of the realm, "You drink from the well; you replenish the well," so everyone is expected to contribute.
 * Elements of the introduction of Ezekiel and the Kingdom are adapted from Issue 108, and the garden scene is adapted from Issue 110.
 * This is the 12th episode Rick didn't appear in.
 * This is the first episode featuring Tom Payne (Jesus) and Xander Berkeley (Gregory) as series regulars. They are all listed under "also starring".
 * This episode was originally going to be 76 minutes (with commercials) but AMC edited their schedule and changed it to 66 minutes, the same length as the previous episode. The reasoning behind their sudden change is unknown.
 * If you missed the episode, you can watch it here. This is the first time AMC has allowed fans to watch the episode with no login required that isn't a season premiere.
 * In the Carol hallucination sequence, twin actors were used to represent the walker and human during each kill.
 * The city skyline visible at the beginning of the episode is Rosslyn, VA.
 * The song the choir is heard singing during the montage is "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" by Bob Dylan.
 * The choir credited in "The Well" is actually a choir from Georgia State University's School of Music. The choir members were only brought in for one episode and have not filmed for the rest of Season 7.
 * The words Ezekiel told Carol: "“Where there’s life, there’s hope, heroism, grace and love. Where there’s life, there’s life." are similar to Morgan's words: "Where there's life, there's possibility." They are also similar to Eastman's words: "Where there's life, there's potential."