WARNING: Possible spoilers for The Walking Dead season eight ahead.
Rick came into this season of The Walking Dead with aims to kill Negan and bring peace back into his little slice of the world for his friends. But some of the events we’ve seen in the comics and how it might play out in the television series are placing some doubts on Rick actually achieving those goals.
As pointed out over at Mashable, this season seems to be following the “All Out War” story arc that we had seen in Robert Kirkman’s comic series. Rick and company are battling The Saviors with the help of the other groups near Alexandria, leading to one of those classic final showdowns between Rick and the bat-wielding maniac Negan. As the fine folks at Mashable explain, the comic story plays out with the big bad finally realizing the errors of his ways:
After Rick suggests that the various communities involved in the war begin to work together instead of fighting, Negan realizes that he’s completely in the wrong with everything that’s gone on between the groups. He finally understands that people can coexist peacefully instead of trying to constantly dominate each other. He finally sees things Rick’s way.
That seems to be a little odd from an outsiders perspective, but this is coming at the end of a long and drawn-out conflict between these men. I’ll buy that Negan instantly came to his senses and wasn’t just sarcastically agreeing with him, but what Rick does next is where the season could go with its next divisive cliffhanger.
As soon as Negan comes to his senses, Rick ends up slicing his throat. This isn’t enough to kill the big bad, but it is enough to take him out as he wrestles with Rick on the ground. Then Rick decides that he no longer wants to kill the man who has terrorized his friends and ruined his life, he wants to lock him up.
For Mashable, it’s a line from the premiere that has them thinking the TV series could be moving this way:
“My mercy prevails over my wrath.”
This is a line spoken by Siddiq in the premiere episode, confirmed by Greg Nicotero to be the character in a chat with Entertainment Weekly, and he will apparently play into the main events throughout this season in a far more meaningful way than his comic counterpart at this point:
You hear that line in the episode, because Siddiq says it to Carl in the gas station when he’s talking about his mom and he was talking about the traveler and all this stuff, and it’s Siddiq that says that he’s basically quoting something that his mom said. So when you broke it down that way there might even be four timelines because if you think about Rick at Glenn and Abraham’s graves, and then you think about Rick on the back of the truck when he’s doing his speech so yeah, we always do that because it always gives the audience an opportunity to put some of these timelines together for themselves.
If Rick does allow his mercy to outweigh the wrath he has to offer, you can expect that fans of the show will be unhappy. We remember the reactions to Negan’s introduction to the series, when he killed Abraham and Glenn in one horrifying moment, so the show has really stacked the deck against the character living on. And if other rumored deaths happen throughout the season, especially those close to Rick, we have to think that the decision would be even tougher to swallow.
Still, this is a solid possibility given how close the show has followed the general path of the comic series up to this point. While it has taken detours, the show essentially hits the same beats. We’ll just have to wait and see.
(Via Mashable / Entertainment Weekly)
