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Alexandria seems like a decent enough place to stop and rest a while, but the slamming iron gate and order to hand over their weapons do not sit well with Rick. And then there's the recorded interviews ... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Rick steps into a posh living room of Deanna Monroe in order to have a chat. He fills her in on his experiences after (and since) the outbreak while she films him for posterity. Deanna, a former Ohio Congresswoman, now resides in the planned community in Alexandria. It soon becomes apparent that the group has been living within the safety of their gates since the beginning, and Rick warns them against opening them to strangers. Andrew Lincoln has a great speech about the state of the world and the things he's had to do to survive in it. Deanna is more convinced than ever that this team of survivors will help her group survive as well. She wants their community to be a safe environment for their children to grow up, and she hopes that Rick's group will work out better than the last few she had to exile.

It looks like Rick has decided to trust Deanna at least for now, since his team checks in their myriad of weapons. While the other citizens give Rick & Co. some space, Aaron sets them up with a new house just down the street from his own. Rick and Carl open the door to their new (already decorated, thanks Pier1!) home and have a hard time shaking their long months spent quietly scoping out abandoned houses. As soon as Carl figures out that the water actually works, it's shave and shower time for Rick ... and boy does he look different! A neighbor named Samantha (Alexandra Breckinridge) stops by to cut Rick's hair, as you do. Daryl, meanwhile, is not so quick to acclimate, looking like a wild animal in Deanna's living room, and then gutting an actual wild animal on their new front porch.

Rick, Daryl, and Carol recognize that their weapons are gone and they've been split up, so they decide to spend their first night in town under the same roof. Carl, meanwhile, does some exploring of his own, tracking some strange noises from the attic and finding what looks like a kids' play area (complete with "Wolf Fight!" comic book). Deanna stops by to check on them, showing her surprise that they're all sticking together like family; there's something Governor-esque about her demeanor, so I clearly don't trust her at this point. There's also the fact that she's assigned everyone jobs based on her impressions of them, except for Michonne, Rick, Sasha, and the enigmatic Daryl.

Though their guns are gone, it seems as if the crew still has blades by their side. It's also clear that Rick still has reservations about the place since he can't sleep, and wanders into the kitchen in order to find a good, reliable knife ... just in case.

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The next morning, everyone's going out to explore (except Daryl, who's minding the house) and Rick reminisces about times spent driving through neighborhoods like this with Lori. Rick loses sight of Carl and Judith, causing him to panic and nearly crash into Samantha. She calms him down and leads him to her neighbors, who used to have five kids of their own and are thrilled to see a baby. Samantha wins Rick over fairly quickly and also invites Carl over to meet her kids. He seems to fit right in with them, playing video games and acting like a normal teenager, but he confesses to his dad that they're weak, and he doesn't want to become like them just because they have some comfy surroundings.

During another sleepless night, Rick and Michonne discuss whether or not they're going to sign Deanna's papers, admitting that they've bought into her system. Rick takes a walk to clear his head and Samantha's husband stops him along the way. He welcomes Rick in probably the creepiest possible way, an introduction that certainly doesn't help the newcomer sleep any easier.

Carol's playing it smart by telling Deanna that not only does she miss her "loving husband Ed" but that she didn't have much to offer the group outside of cooking and cleaning. She cleans up nice, but tells Daryl that he has to shower in order to keep up appearances. Glenn, on the other hand, is starkly honest with Deanna about just how close the crew came to "being out there too long." Rick decides he wants to go back out there and walks the city's perimeter wall, while Carl watches the new girl in town make a break for it by climbing the walls from the inside. Does she know something Carl doesn't? He follows her to find out, but soon loses her trail. Rick also loses something: the gun he placed in the blender by a pile of trash before entering the city. That does not bode well. Carl happens upon him just as a small group of Walkers shows up. The Grimes boys go to work with their blades in hand. There's no weakness here.

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Back in Alexandria, a citizen named Aidan - Deanna's son - and a friend of his stop Glenn, Noah, and Tara in the street in order to take them on a dry run to show them the lay of the land. The armed guards seem like they're playing at being cops, while Glenn and the others clearly miss their military-grade weapons of destruction.  Aidan's filling them in on their system of circling the city, extending the radius mile by mile, then firing a flare if they spot any Roamers. They're also in the habit of stringing up the Walkers they catch and torturing them, especially if they happened to kill one of their friends. One of them happens to wriggle free and nearly kills Tara, but Glenn puts it down for good.

Aidan and his buddy don't like how Glenn points out their faults, and makes even more poor decisions when he tries to sucker punch the veteran. Aidan lands on his ass and Daryl puts his buddy on his back. Deanna breaks up the fight and uses this moment to appoint Rick and Michonne as the new law in town. They accept, and Daryl rebels in his usual anti-establishment way, though he still trusts Rick. Carol is worried about them getting comfortable, which could lead the to getting weak. Rick seems to think that their weakness has been burned out of them, and that they can make this place work. And if the citizens can't hack it, then Rick & Co. will just take over. All hail Ricktator Grimes!

"Remember" was one of those episodes I'd been waiting for for a while, an hour where the group finally leaves the weariness of travel on the road behind for the seemingly secure walls of a new home. It's happened before with the Greene family farm, the community at Woodbury, the group's own attempt at the prison, and, of course, at Terminus. What's great about these episodes isn't just the question of whether or not this place will turn out to be heavenly or hellish, but rather the questions the people themselves ask of each other. Can we trust them not to betray us? Can we trust ourselves not to take advantage of these people's weaknesses? If Rick's final words are any clue, it sounds as if Deanna might have just let the wolves in the door.

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Rating: ★★★★ Very good — Damn fine television

(An explanation of our ratings system follows here.)

Miscellanea:

Daryl: "We brought dinner."

Rick: "Good thing we're here."

Scruffy, dirty, hairy Rick sitting in the beautiful modern living room with books, musical instruments, and decorations adorning the space is one of the weirder contrasts on the show in recent memory.

Deanna: "I'm exceptionally good at reading people. If I didn't win the re-election, I was going to be a professional poker player."

Okay, so do we prefer Biblical Beard Rick Grimes or Clean-Shaven Long-Haired Grimes?

Deanna: "Wow! I didn't know what was under there!"

Carl: "This is the kind of place my mom wanted for us." Deanna: "I'm sorry you lost her." Carl: "I didn't just lose her, I killed her."

Aidan: "We pulled out some sweet-ass biscuits for today!" It's like he's trying to communicate.

Deanna: "Thank you." Glenn: "For what?" Deanna: "For knocking him on his ass."

Hey! Rick's got a new uniform! But is he playing Deanna, or is it the other way around?

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Image via AMC