Episode 6 - "Swear"
Words cannot express how excited I was to see Tara and Heath. I had kind of forgotten about those two seeing how it was like, 9 episodes ago when we last saw them. After Rick & the gang (including those two) attacked the Neegan outpost, Heath and Tara set out in the RV on a two-week scavenging mission. Heath was not in favor of the killing mission. It seems he’s still struggling with it, and what this means for their future and survival. The pair get separated with Tara going into a river and washing up on a beachy shore in Virginia. Oh, and it looks like Heath just let her go over without helping her. Not cool!
A nice young lady spares her life and leaves her supplies. There’s a weird little girl with her who gleefully wants to stab Tara in the head. Now, here is where things get really interesting. Turns out that Tara is an unwelcomed guest at this compound called Oceanside. The villagers there have a kill on sight policy. The girl who saved her, Cindy, is the optimistic grandchild of leader Natanya. Once they discover Tara’s intrusion, the wild women of Oceanside try and shoot her down. Cindy intervenes AGAIN to save our friend. Natanya and her two sidekicks offer Tara the chance to stay on with them. It turns out the group of ladies are hiding out from the Saviors, who killed all their menfolk. Tara has no choice but to come clean and tell the troop about Alexandria, her friends, her girlfriend (whom she doesn’t know is dead!!!), PLUS that she thinks they killed Neegan at the satellite building, and that she just wants to find Heath and go home. Tara tells them she will build an alliance and Alexandria and Oceanside can help each other.
Natanya’s right-hand women, Beatrice and Katherine (??) agree to lead Tara back to the bridge she fell off of. Well, turns out it was all a big trap. The two beezies were just taking her out back to kill her! Beatrice explains the brutality the group faced under with the Saviors. All the men and boys over 10 were lined up and executed. The women were supposed to serve them, and managed to escape instead. She goes on to explain to Tara that she and her peeps just took out an outpost, the Saviors is a massive organization that cannot be beat. And if the people of Alexandria has run into them, it’s already too late. And yet AGAIN Cindy saves Tara’s ass. Cindy still has hope in humanity! She makes Tara swear to tell no one about Oceanside, then uses her major sniper skills to help Tara escape.
Tara makes it home, because she’s a bad ass. It looks like Heath may have made it out of the scuffle on the bridge too. We see in flashbacks that despite their differences, Heath DID try to save her. I’m really happy about that, cause I liked Heath. Sadly, Tara is greeted by Eugene telling her everyone she loves is dead. Rosita plies her for info on weapons and ammo, anything they can steal or scavenge to take out Neegan. Because Tara also still has some of that good ole’ humanity in her, she keeps her promise to Cindy and doesn’t say a word about Oceanside.
Top 4 Moments of the Night:
TARA is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! Not only is she awesome, this girl brings with her some much needed comedic relief. She’s got jokes, sarcasm, and the BEST delivery. I hope that she keeps some of that humor throughout the rest of season despite the REALLY bad situation she just came home to.
Cindy! This girl was lovely. Her mother and brother were killed by The Saviors, but she is still clinging to hope and not despair. Forgive my paraphrasing, but near the end of the episode she tells Tara, “no one is evil, they just choose to forget who they are.”
The sand drenched zombies. In a neat little trap, a whole mess of walkers come tumbling out of a dump truck filled with sand on the bridge. They look almost mummified and have this satisfying way of crumbling when stabbed in the head.
Finding a new community! Oceanside may not be the friendliest city in the apocalypse, but I’m still happy to have met them. I love that this season our survivors are getting a taste of what is out there, and the promise of more to be explored.
