I think it's as simple as this: the writers needed Rick and Morgan to come upon the pickup before they noticed Carol's car, and they didn't think past that.

Nope, Watch it again. I download it, I watched twice. It still made no sense.

Oh, and one other thing.
Carol sneaked out in the middle of the night. The next day she meets the pickup roughly FOURTEEN MILES from Alexandria.

Nope. Field-They-All-Eventually-Walked-Off-Into was on Carol's right as she drove up to the pickup. Was on Rick's left as he and Morgan came to the pickup,

It's nothing against Fresno, it's just about all guys named Gary.

This show is the anti-Lost.
Lost sucked because we had no idea WTF was going on and none of it ever made sense.

TIP: If you're ever stranded on a lifeboat with only bacon and you're a vegetarian, don't eat the bacon. Your stomach won't be used to it, you'll get horrible cramps and diarrhea, causing you to become dehydrated even faster (and that's not even counting for the salt.)

The thing I don't get is why Glen and Maggie don't let Daryl use their shower… and the shampoo they're apparently stashing.

So, let me try to understand this… Carol leaves Alexandria and meets a pickup, stops, has shootout.

NCR sold it's paper division off a few years ago.

Random fact I learned in the 80s when working at a print shop… carbonless copy paper forms are called NCR paper.
Invented by NCR - National Cash Register Co.

I needed some for a project about 5 years ago, couldn't find any anywhere. Ended up buying some old stock from someone off eBay.

He's been practically reduced to an extra at this point.
Seriously, the writers on this show are just so bad… Morse couldn't telegraph like these people.

Urologist trying too hard to be funny.

I disagree. This episode didn't need more time to tell its story. It actually didn't need to exist at all. It was so stupid as to be beyond pointless.

Damned if this wasn't the clumsiest episode yet.
I can only imagine the writer's room:
"OK, what's THIS week's obvious moral of the story going to be?"
"I have an idea! This week let's have someone who is skilled feel that their skill is not enough, that they aren't really contributing unless they can kill."

I think you misunderstood the book.

Well how the hell big could it really be? Meth hasn't really ramped up yet at this point.

The last episode was a cop out, swerved away at the last moment from Gilligan's stated plan for the character. Walter didn't actually end up as Scarface.
I see why that was necessary for the sake of retaining the good will of most of the audience, but to me it was a disappointment.

" For the first season and most of the second season, Skylar was painted
as the "the bitchy wife giving Walt an unnecessarily hard time when all
he's trying to do is make sure his family isn't screwed when he dies."