‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: Fully a Man Apart
Warning: This recap for the “Hostiles and Calamities” episode of The Walking Dead contains spoilers.
Eugene and Dwight, the biter and the bite-ee from Season 6’s “Twice As Far,” begin “Hostiles and Calamities” as enemies, but by the end of the episode, some dramatic and heartbreaking changes have both men declaring definitively, “We are Negan.”
What caused Dwight to solidify his seemingly wavering commitment to Negan? And how did Eugene, the man who concocted the plan to make bullets that would help the Alexandrians defeat the Saviors, come to join #TeamNegan and break the hearts of many a Eugene fan with his apparent betrayal of his friends? Read on…
Farewell, Joey
When Dwight spots dead Fat Joey and his uneaten sammich in a pool of blood at the Sanctuary, and then peeps an open spot in the motorcycle lineup, he immediately realizes the big-picture implications that are going to spell big trouble for him: Daryl’s gone. In a time jump backwards to the events of “Hearts Still Beating,” Dwight runs to Daryl’s cell, only to find the door open and Daryl nowhere to be found. Dwight runs to his own apartment, and finds his hand-carved figures tossed about and Daryl’s “A” sweatsuit in a heap. He also finds a small note on the floor — with the words “Go now” written on it — and he seems to recognize the handwriting. The panicked look on his face also suggests he has some idea about what has happened at the Sanctuary.
Welcome, Eugene
Just as Dwight sees Fat Joey, he hears the rumbling of Negan’s supply trucks returning. Onboard one of the vehicles: Eugene, who the Saviors had just kidnapped from Alexandria, after Rosita shot Lucille with a bullet DIY-ed by Eugene. Mr. Porter is ushered out of the truck and the bag over his head is removed, giving him his first glimpse at the scope of the Sanctuary’s size and population. And, because it’s Eugene, making him begin to cry and plead for his life as Savior Laura leads him inside the Sanctuary and toward a closed door. But death doesn’t await Eugene: an apartment with furnishings, the one Negan had previously offered to Daryl, does, and when Laura cuts his restraints and tells him, “Welcome home, Haircut,” Eugene’s attention is won over by his surroundings, including a selection of books. Laura tells him there are lots more at the Sanctuary library, something his buddy Daryl didn’t peruse before he “bounced.” Eugene’s surprised to learn of Daryl’s escape, making it clear he doesn’t know where he is, but that he would give him up if he did.
Laura asks Eugene if he wants something to eat. Anything he wants? Yes. Even lobster? “No, what the hell do you think this is?” she says. His second choice: canned pasta in tomato sauce. Would he like the orange-y or the red, she wonders, and he chooses orange-y, indicating that Eugene prefers the Campbell’s (formerly Franco-American) goodness of SpaghettiOs, as opposed to the redder-hued sauce of the Chef Boyardee products. He also wants pickles, but Laura says they’re out. How ‘bout potato chips? They’ve got ‘em, says Laura. Eugene wants to know if they’re fresh. They are, Laura confirms, made by the person known as Number 42, in a kettle. Eugene will pass then. He prefers bagged chips, no matter how stale they may be at this point, apparently. Eugene has a very particular set of culinary tastes.
While Laura is off grabbing his vittles, Eugene continues to investigate his new abode, and he’s happy with what he finds. He has clothes and books and sheets for his bed. There’s a stove and a sink and a refrigerator, stocked with beer, fresh fruits and veggies, bread, and eggs. He even has a boom box, and when he presses the play button, he hears “Easy Street” and naively bops his head along with the tune ever so slightly, unaware, unlike the rest of us, that it will now be stuck in his head for the rest of his life.
Oh, Sherry
Things are going less well for Dwight, who’s in his apartment, staring at the “Go now” note. Negan and his men come crashing through the door and immediately start pounding on Dwight, kicking him to the ground. The next time we see him, he’s inside Daryl’s old cell, and Negan comes banging on that door with Lucille. “Is it just as cozy in here as you remember?” Negan asks, reminding him about all the time he spent in there after that ill-fated road trip with Sherry and her sister, Tina.
Negan says he and his men went looking for Daryl, searching the perimeter of the compound, but found nothing. He returned home only to find out Sherry was missing. Negan thinks it’s some coincidence she left right after Daryl took off, especially since evidence suggests Daryl didn’t force his way out; someone opened the door for him.
Dwight says it wasn’t Sherry.
Negan asks “Dwightie Boy” if he did it. Maybe instead of him breaking Daryl, as was his assignment, Daryl broke him and he helped Mr. Dixon escape? “Let’s face it, you’ve got some pretty legitimate grievances,” Negan acknowledges. “You change your stripes on me, Dwightie? After all this… before and after… hell, after everything, who are you Dwight?”
“I’m Negan,” Dwight answers, and Negan opens the cell.
“Daryl isn’t like you,” Negan continues. “He’s emotional. So he’s either on his way home, or on his way back here to kill some more of us. Mostly you and me. Either way, we’ll find him.” He wants Dwight to focus on Sherry. When Dwight says he knows where his former missus went, Negan orders him to bring her back, and tells the nearby Dr. Carson to stitch Dwight up: “Fix what you can fix.”
In Carson’s office, the doctor tells Dwight he thinks he knows what happened. Sherry has a big heart. She was soft, and couldn’t stand to see Daryl in the state he was in, so she let him go. Dwight, on the other hand, “gets it,” Carson says. He was unfairly beaten, Carson says, but is already “right back to it.” Carson says he bets Dwight will end up running an outpost for Negan, but Sherry is the kind of person who would marry Negan to save her husband. She’s the kind of “tenderhearted person who isn’t really expected to be around anymore,” says Carson.
Dwight’s unhappy about Carson’s ramblings, and makes a stop at his apartment to retrieve a nearly empty cigarette pack from the mouth of a large mounted fish that hangs on his wall before he takes off on his motorcycle.
Calling Dr. Smartypants
Laura takes Eugene on a tour of the Sanctuary’s marketplace, where he’s told he can take anything he wants, unlike “them,” those who work in the marketplace. “You want something, you take it, Haircut,” Laura says, picking up a giant jar of homemade pickles and putting it in Eugene’s arms. He’s clutching it like a security blanket when she leads him outside for a meeting with Negan, who immediately re-establishes his leadership by asking everyone surrounding him who they are. “I am Negan!” they obediently shout.
“There he is, the man of the hour,” Negan says to Eugene, who doesn’t respond. “Don’t be rude, a–hole, say ‘Hello,’” Negan tells him, and Eugene stammers out a greeting, still holding onto those pickles like his life depends on it.
Negan points to Lucille and the place where Rosita shot his weapon, reminding Eugene it was with the bullet he made. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be showing you that real close, over and over,” Negan says. “But, Eugene, all I really want to know is if you are a smartypants. You know things? Answer the question.”
“I am indeed a smartypants,” Eugene answers, still shaking with fear. “I’ve taught myself to cast bullets, I found a machine shop with the, uh, necessary… I read a lot, and even though my memory is not considered eidetic, I don’t skim and I don’t scrimp, and if knowledge is dropped, I do indeed pick it up.”
Negan, laughing, says Eugene is really just “some a–hole,” as the rest of the Saviors laugh at him, too. Instead of frightening him, though, the derision emboldens Eugene to defend his intellect. “No, I’m not. I have PhDs in biochemistry, as well as in immunology and microbiology, and I completed my doctorate, which makes me a doctor,” he tells them. “Prior to the collapse, I was part of a 10-person team at the Human Genome Project, working under Dr. T. Brooks Ellis… weaponized diseases to fight weaponized diseases… fire with, you know, fire.”
Eugene’s story prompts Negan to issue him a challenge. “All right there, Dr. Smartypants. You outta be able to crack this without breaking a sweat…” One of the fence walkers that helps protect the Sanctuary falls apart — literally, with the bottom half of his body simply dropping apart from the top half, leaving his innards to splash out onto the ground. Negan wants to know how Eugene could help him fix this problem, so as to avoid the continuing loss of this free security force.
Everyone’s looking at Eugene now, as if his life depends on him coming up with an answer, and no one is more aware than he is that his life may very well depend on a solution. Which he provides. He noted the Sanctuary has an operational smelter. If they melt down some scrap metal and pour its liquid result over the walkers, it will harden and “maintain vital integrity for the walker, as well as affixing them to the fence,” Eugene offers. It will also protect their heads from “hostiles and calamities.”
“Goddamn, if that ain’t the coolest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!” Negan says. “Not only is that practical, it’s just bada–. Look at you, Dr. Smartypants.”
Negan puts his arm around Eugene’s shoulder and asks if Rick had him doing this kind of stuff for him. Then he says he thinks Eugene deserves some kind of signing bonus for his swell idea.
“Well, I was gifted these pickles,” Eugene protests, but Negan’s got something different in mind. He tells Eugene he’s going to send a few of his wives over to Eugene’s apartment for a party. No sex — he stresses, that would be a grave no-no — but tells Dr. Smartypants “there is nothing like beautiful women that smell good to make you feel human again.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that… did you say ‘wives,’ meaning plural?” Eugene asks.
“Hell, yes, I did,” Negan tells him. “What does Dr. Smartypants say to his bestest friend in the whole wide world?” Eugene says nothing, so Negan whistles to get him to look his way. “What does he say?”
“Thank you,” Eugene manages. “Fully, completely, sincerely, seriously, thank you.”
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Negan sends him on his way, and as Laura escorts him home, Eugene’s back is turned to everyone. A smirk spreads across his face.
That evening, Eugene is sitting in a recliner chair, surrounded by Amber, Tanya, and Frankie — Mrs. Negans all — who are watching him play “Yar’s Revenge” on an old Atari, while snacking on the microwave popcorn and wine Eugene is serving them. The host tells his guests that if they’d rather play something else — like “Warlords,” which is “quite the hoot” — he’ll swap it in, but they assure him this is his night, so he should have whatever he wants. Frankie even offers him a massage, making a little growly noise when he says no and pulls his leg away from underneath her hand.
“While I appreciate the gesture and your commitment to your assigned objective, I am fully aware that none of you ladies are here of your own volition,” he tells them. “Videogames are all about me showing all of you a fun time.”
They tell him they’d like to just have some good conversations with him, but when Tanya says she’d love to chat about the Human Genome Project — the one Eugene claims to be a part of, the job he already ‘fessed up to lying about to Abraham and Rosita back in Season 5’s “Self Help” — he tells them the info is classified, and that it would probably “escape your comprehension” anyway. So smooth with the ladies, this guy.
“My intelligence has been objectively measured,” he continues. “I am fully a man apart.”
Tanya asks if that means he knows how to make things, like a bomb out of bleach and toothpicks. Of course not, Eugene says. It’d take a lot more household ingredients than that, and he rattles off a list. Then he proves it. Carrying a bucket of supplies and surgical gloves blown up into balloons, Eugene leads his new friends outside and performs some chemistry tricks — while humming the “1812 Overture” — that convince them he really is the well-educated genius he bills himself to be.
Coming Home
Dwight stops his motorcycle in front of a house that has seen better days. Inside, it’s a mess, abandoned, clearly, with a sinkful of dirty dishes still on display. Dwight picks up a photo frame from the floor, and it’s of him and Sherry, smiling, with no iron marks on Dwight’s face. He’s in their home, which includes a Post-It Note reminding him to feed the goldfish. He compares it to the note he found in his room at the Sanctuary, and the handwriting of the “g” in goldfish and the “g” in “Go now” match; Sherry did write the note to Daryl, and she did help him escape.
Dwight also finds a handwritten letter from Sherry in the house, with her wedding and engagement ring on top. In voiceover, she reads the letter to him, reminding him that they had agreed that if they ever got separated, they’d meet back at their home, and Dwight would bring pretzels and beer for them. She also recalls his bad memory, the one that she is sure will lead him to forget a lot of the happier days of their lives together. She wishes she could wait for him now, she writes, but says she doesn’t know if he would leave with her, take her back to Negan, or kill her.
She writes that she knows he didn’t want to return to the Sanctuary. She convinced him to. Now, he’s killed people and become everything he didn’t want to be, and it’s her fault. “I let Daryl go because he reminded you of who you used to be, and I wanted to let you forget,” she tells Dwight, who is angry and crying and throws a drawer across their bedroom.
Sherry writes that she doesn’t think she’ll make it “out there,” but that he’s wrong about life at the Sanctuary being better than death. It’s worse, she says. “I loved who you were. I’m sorry I made you into who you are,” she writes. She adds that he’ll probably never even receive this letter, and signs off, “Goodbye, Honey.”
Dwight prepares to leave, after emptying his cigarette pack from the Sanctuary and letting his own wedding band tumble into his hand, alongside Sherry’s. Before he goes, he takes a bag of pretzels and a six-pack of beer from his backpack and puts them on the table.
Meet Grimblygunk
Eugene is rather contentedly playing “Yar’s Revenge” in his apartment when Tanya and Frankie come a-knocking. “I was given to believe that last night’s shinny was to be a singular incident,” he tells them. But they’ve come on business: their pal Amber is so dejected she wants to commit suicide, they say, and they want Eugene to whip up a pill, two pills, that will allow her a painless death. He protests, but eventually agrees after they share how miserable she is being forced into her marriage to Negan. They tell him they know he’s a good man.
“The truth is, I’m not good,” he says. “Not lawful, not neutral, or chaotic,” Eugene says. “None of the above.”
He goes to the marketplace, on his own, to get the supplies for his project, but quickly tires of waiting in line and cuts to the front. The proprietor — Number 16 — yells at him and tells him to get to the back, and he does, for a second, before charging back to the front and dropping a Eugene version of “Do you know who I am?!” on her. He tells her he’s the chief engineer of the place, reporting directly to Negan, which means he’ll be taking what he wants. And he does. He demands a pack of cold medication, then takes a bed pan, a flyswatter, the rest of her supply of meds, and a knitted little doll creature he says he’s calling “Grimblygunk.”
He grins as he walks away with his haul, and returns to his abode to make those pills.
“We Don’t Get to Have Big Hearts”
Back at the Sanctuary, Dwight is getting a new bandage in Dr. Carson’s office. He tells Carson he found Sherry, and she’s now dead. She ran right into a pack of walkers when he was chasing her. Carson tells him to try to forget it: “We don’t get to have big hearts. Remember that.”
Laura escorts Eugene to the big Sanctuary meeting room, the one with the giant oven Negan uses to heat the iron he uses to discipline those who break his rules. Dwight, all too familiar with the business side of that iron, is heating it up for Negan, who makes a point of telling Eugene he should pay close attention to what’s about to happen. With the rest of the community also gathered around, Negan hits Dr. Carson with Lucille. Several times. And then he explains: something was found tucked away inside Carson’s desk: a slip of paper that reads, “Goodbye, Honey.” It was planted by Dwight, who cut it off from the letter Sherry wrote to him and left at their old home.
But Negan believes something else. He believes Carson is the one who set Daryl free. “You left the door open and let my puppy out,” Negan says, claiming Carson had some delusional feelings for Sherry and thought that move would endear him to her, as she hated seeing Daryl locked up. She knew Negan would assume she freed Daryl, which frightened her and caused her to run away, Negan says, which led her to getting eaten by walkers. This is the story Dwight told him.
Carson says Dwight is lying, but Negan doesn’t buy it. He says Dwight has no reason to lie, because if Sherry is still alive, he’ll find her, and if he did and learned Dwight had lied, he’d burn the other side of Dwight’s face until he dies.
Carson begs to avoid the iron, and Negan tells him he won’t use it on him if he just admits what he did and apologizes. Carson lies, and says he did it, and that he’s sorry. Negan doesn’t use the iron on him.
Instead, he throws him headfirst into the oven. As Eugene covers his face and several Saviors cry, Dr. Carson’s screams can still be heard for his first few seconds in the oven. Dwight remains emotionless, until Negan apologizes for doubting him. He says he’s sorry about Sherry, too.
“I’m not,” Dwight tells Negan.
“Ice cold!” Negan replies. “Love it.”
“We Are Negan”
Eugene is once again at the “Yar’s Revenge” control, when Frankie and Tanya pay him another visit. They ask if he’s okay. “Better than that,” he answers, before telling them he’s not giving them the suicide pills. He figured out their real plan, which is not to use the pills for Amber, but to use them to kill Negan, and he’s not going along with that.
“Didn’t he kill your friend?” Tanya asks.
“Several,” Eugene says. “But I imagine we killed about 30 or so of his. Turnabout and all that.” Like Dwight at the oven after Carson’s death, Eugene also shows no emotion, and doesn’t stop playing his videogame while the women are talking to him.
Frankie demands he give them the pills, saying they’ll tell Negan about them, and that it was Eugene’s idea to make them, if he doesn’t.
“Be a tactical error on your part,” he warns Negan’s wives. He says Negan will believe him instead of the women, for the same reason he believed Dwight instead of Dr. Carson. “You’re replaceable to him,” Eugene says. “I, on the other hand, am not.”
Tanya tells him he is a coward.
“That is a correct assessment,” he confirms.
Later, Eugene gets another visitor. Negan. He says he’s heard nothing but good things about Eugene from his wives, and wants to know if the Saviors are treating him right.
Eugene, who remains visibly nervous and shaky, says nothing, and Negan tells him he understands it’s hard to change to another team, but Eugene should know he does not make this invitation to everyone, and he does not make it lightly.
“Hey… you do not need to be scared anymore. You don’t need to be scared…” Negan says, and Eugene’s face changes, his breathing slows, and he’s no longer shaking.
“… you just need to answer me one question, and it’s a big one,” Negan continues. “Who are…”
“I’m Negan,” Eugene says, cutting Negan off before he even finishes the question. “I’m utterly, completely, stone cold Negan. I was Negan before I even met you. I just needed to meet you properly to know. I’m Negan.”
Negan smiles.
Later, outside, Eugene is overseeing the covering of the fence walkers in liquid metal, as he noshes on a giant pickle and houses Grimblygunk in the pocket of his new driving coat. He warns the workers to be careful. “Hey, you wanna get burned by molten metal, ‘cuz that’s exactly how you get burned by molten metal!” he yells at them.
He’s joined on the scene by Dwight. Eugene looks over at his fellow Savior, and starts to remind him about the last time they met, in Season 6’s “Twice as Far,” after Dwight killed Denise, and Eugene bit Dwight’s, uh, Dwightie boy, to stop him from killing Eugene and his other friends.
“Regarding me clamping down on…” Eugene gets out, before Dwight cuts him off.
“You on board?” Dwight asks.
Eugene: “I am. Just like you. Don’t know if you recall my handle?”
Dwight: “I don’t.”
Eugene: “Eugene. You’re Dwight. We are Negan.”
Dwight: “Yeah.”
Related: ‘The Walking Dead’ Postmortem: Norman Reedus Breaks Down that Carol and Daryl Reunion
Zombie Bites:
— Daryl leaving the Kingdom to return to the Hilltop seemed like a super bad idea at the end of last week’s episode, and it’s worse now. Negan was willing to bake his Dr. Carson because, as he tells Dwight, there’s another Dr. Carson at the Hilltop, and it’s a pretty safe bet he’ll be sending his men to fetch the new Carson soon. That means Negan is likely to learn that Maggie is at the Hilltop and pregnant, and that there is a big chance the Saviors will catch Daryl at the Hilltop.
— The tune playing while Eugene makes his triumphant walk back to his room after taking the medicine and Grimblygunk from the marketplace: “Everything Right Is Wrong Again,” by They Might Be Giants. Read the lyrics if you get a chance — a couple of lines in there that might be especially relevant to Eugene’s decisions in this episode.
— Eugene is awfully certain Frankie and Tanya won’t tell Negan about the pills he made, and that Negan would believe Eugene instead of them anyway, but quite a few people saw Eugene make a scene at the marketplace when he made off with all the medical supplies. And people are always being watched at the Sanctuary. Isn’t it possible the women could build a little trail of evidence that would tie Eugene to the supplies and the making of the pills?
— What about that red-headed person Eugene saw swipe something from the marketplace when Laura took him on his first shopping trip there… Might that somehow come into play again?
— Those books Eugene was happy to find in his Sanctuary apartment: sci-fi works by Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning writer Vonda N. McIntyre.
Okay, Dead-heads, let’s hear your reactions to “Hostiles and Calamities.” Namely, has our Eugene gone to the dark side? And if so, is it a fake-out to survive, or has he decided the perks and privileges of being one of Negan’s prized cohorts is where he is meant to live out the apocalypse? Let’s hear your theories!
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
While you wait for this week’s “Ranking Dead,” see how we ranked the characters in last week’s episode.
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