'The Walking Dead' recap ('Spend'): season 5, episode 14

In this action-packed episode, we learned quite a bit about what these Alexandria people are like outside the wall: cowards! While Rick's crew will do all it can to save its fellow man (or woman) when they are in danger, Alexandrians are apt to run.

It happened twice this hour:

Evidence #1: Abraham is helping expand the wall and is with the construction crew taking wall material. Walkers arrive. One Alexandrian is being surrounded. The men retreat. So Abraham has to come in and save her. Wimps! The foreman cedes control to Abraham, making Deanna (understandably) uneasy. But Abraham was quite glorious whacking away at walkers.

Evidence #2: Nicholas and Aiden take Glenn, Noah, Tara and Eugene on a supply run to get parts for the (now) wonky solar electrical grid. They go to a supply warehouse, where Eugene finds the parts. That's the good news. The bad news: Aiden shoots a military walker and is so inept, he shoots the dude's grenade. Shrapnel injures Tara in the head and Aiden is pinned against a wall, with a big piece of metal in his shoulder. The grenade also knocks open a door with many many walkers behind it. So they are exposed.

A walker is about to attack Eugene and a knocked-out Tara. Eugene, who has readily admitted to being cowardly, tries to shoot but is so shaky, Noah has to save them.

Soon after, they try to extricate Aiden but the walkers arrive and he gets eaten alive. It's grotesque but not as grotesque as what is about to come.

Eugene shows courage by taking an unconscious, bleeding Tara to the truck. She was his best friend so he steps up. ["This was an awesome moment for him," said Josh McDermott, who plays Eugene, during "Talking Dead."]

And in a particularly inventive scene, Noah, Glenn and Nicholas get stuck in a revolving door with walkers on both sides. As Nicholas grabs for a rifle outside, Noah gets dragged into a raft of walkers and gets unceremoniously eaten right in front of a horrified Glenn. This is even more grotesque than Aiden's death. And we viewers actually care about Noah to boot.

Noah's poignant final words to Glenn: "Don't let go."

Despite his short time with the group, Noah made a great impression with his inherent goodness.

[Sadly, earlier, Noah had met with Deanna's sweet architect husband Reg and expressed his desire to learn to build. Reg hands him a notebook so he could take notes. He would only get one sentence in: "This is the beginning."]

During "Talking Dead," Steven Yeun (Glenn) explains: "It's the loss of innocence. It's the loss of potential." Glenn, he says, sees a little of himself in the past in Noah. "I was Noah just a couple of years ago," he said.

Eugene, in the truck, helps draw walkers away, enabling Nicholas to escape. Nicholas tries (and fails) to convince Eugene to leave Glenn and Noah behind. Eugene isn't going for it. Fortunately, Glenn punches Nicholas out and they leave in said truck. But Glenn keeps Nicholas around. (He'll need Nicholas to vouch to Deanna how Aiden died.)

Back at Alexandria:

In a move that will have serious ramifications in the future, Gabriel tells Deanna that Rick's people are not good, that they will ruin Deanna's "paradise." "There is a false light inside these walls," he says. "I'm grateful to be here. I am. But you made a mistake letting in the others."

Ingrate! This is coming from a man who is the king of cowards. No wonder he connects so much with the Alexandria folks. (Was it the strawberries Rosemary left at the beginning of the episodes?)

Of course, Maggie happens to be listening in so the battle lines will be set for the next two episodes.

And it's clear Deanna takes Gabriel's words seriously.

Another issue: Sam, Jessie's son, is so gutsy, he actually demands cookies from Carol. Carol says if he steals chocolate, she'll make the cookies for him - once. Carol wants nothing to do with him, seeing him as a threat, but while they bake, he keeps trying to engage her. She figures out that Sam - like her - is a victim of physical abuse.

We see Pete, Jessie's dad, a bit drunk and trying to bond with Rick. Later, Carol comes to Rick and tells him that Pete is probably abusing Jessie and Sam. Carol's conclusion to Rick: "You're going to have to kill him."

This is not going to go well for anybody - especially Pete.