With Negan set to arrive soon on The Walking Dead, this may not be the best time for members of Rick’s crew to start losing their nerve. After facing off against her spiritual doppelganger in the Saviors, Carol is an absolute mess. Meanwhile, Maggie managed to hold it together long enough to kill her abductors (and burn another couple of Saviors alive), but even she’s done with the killing. The people of Rick’s camp may be good at killing to defend themselves, but that doesn’t mean they are emotionally prepared to murder, even if the people they murder pose a threat to them.
After this week’s episode, Rick’s group may have the numbers when it comes to facing off against Negan, but they have never been more emotionally vulnerable.
Here are nine questions we have going into next week’s episode.
1. Is Carol Switching Allegiances?
We spoke at length in the previous post about the sudden transformation of Carol’s character, and there is some question as to how much of Carol’s breakdown in this episode was genuine and how much of it was an act to give Polly a false sense of security. On the whole, however, it appears as though Carol’s behavior came from a real place. Morgan got into her head. The guilt stemming from her swelling body count continues to grow. She sees herself in Polly, and she doesn’t like what she sees.
Ten episodes ago, Rick had no bigger ally than Carol. After spending some time with Morgan, and really hearing what he has to say about the value of life, Carol’s beginning to question herself and her motivations. Is this really about survival, and even if it is, is survival worth the cost?
2. Is Maggie the new Carol?
While Carol is evolving into Morgan, it seems as though Maggie’s emotional journey is taking her through Carol territory. She was vicious in much of this episode. She wanted to finish off the guy who got shot in the arm. She refused to run when they had the opportunity, choosing to stay behind and kill the rest of their abductors, and to do so again to burn the scout team Survivors alive. Maggie was no-nonsense, brutal, and fearless, all while carrying a baby.
That behavior, however, clearly took a toll on Maggie, and when she saw her husband again, her fight-or-flight instincts seemed to evaporate. “I can’t anymore.”
3. What’s up with the safe house?
I’m not entirely sure what to make of the safe house, but the fact that the Saviors have one, in addition to the compound that was raided last week, suggests that the Saviors are a much, much bigger operation than anyone had previously believed.
4. Will Maggie live through childbirth?
The issue of whether Maggie can even survive childbirth had not been given much attention until now, when it became a sore subject for Maggie in her conversation with Polly and the other Saviors. It’s not an unreasonable concern. Lori died in childbirth because she had to have a C-section. Even with Denise on hand, are they prepared should complications arise in Maggie’s pregnancy? Is it even worth the risk? I can’t imagine that the stress of killing other people while protecting her own life can be good for the baby growing inside of her, not to mention the dwindling food supply. It’s very possible that Maggie loses her baby before term, as the other Savior had. In fact, that Savior’s conversation about losing her baby may be the show’s way of emotionally preparing us for Maggie to lose hers.
5. The Power of Fear
There is at least one major difference between Rick’s group and Negan’s: Rick is not ruling by fear alone. When one of the female Saviors was left to locate her boyfriend’s body, she lost a finger. We will probably learn that several other Saviors have suffered harsh consequences for not immediately falling in line with their leader. With Rick’s group, at least some dissent is allowed. That dissent may ultimately get shouted down, but Rick has never disfigured anyone for disagreeing. We get the feeling that even the Saviors — Negan’s own people — do not like their leader, even if they have to respect him for keeping them alive.
6. Who is Negan?
Both Mary and Primo strangely suggested in this episode that Negan is not a person. Rather Negan is an idea. We know Negan is a person, because we know who will be playing him (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Is it possible, however, that many of the Saviors have never even met their leader? That he’s an almost mythological man who rules his minions from the shadows?
7. Was that Daryl’s bike?
A few outlets picked up on it last week, but it didn’t immediately occur to me that the motorcycle Primo was riding on was the one that belonged to Daryl. That, of course, means that Primo got it from Dwight, which more or less confirms what we already knew: Dwight is one of the Saviors and he went back to them at the end of “Always Accountable.” Leaving their compound to find their friend in the front half of this season will also almost certainly mean Dwight will suffer some form of disfigurement, which we will get to see in the season finale.
8. Who are the bad people now?
A major theme of this episode and the last was the idea that Rick and co. are just as bad as Negan and the Saviors. They keep insisting that they kill because they have to in order to protect themselves, but how true is that? With limited exceptions, Rick and co. have never been proactive about killing. They defend themselves when it’s necessary, but now they are launching their own preemptive attacks, not unlike the Governor did against them in the prison. Carol, Maggie, Glenn, and Heath have shown a reluctance to be these kind of people, and if that trend continues, Rick could face an uprising within his own people or, worse, he may have to turn to fear to keep rule over them.
9. Is this a turning point for The Walking Dead?
The sneak attack on the Savior compound, as well as the cold-blooded and unnecessary murder of Primo, strongly suggests that Rick and the people of Alexandria have crossed a moral line. Daryl no longer wants to seek out new members, while Rick showed no reluctance to kill either the man who stabbed Gregory in the Hilltop Community or Primo. Negan’s arrival may mean that several characters will die, but he may also be necessary to restore some balance and remind Rick of what their community is supposed to be about: Being cautious, but compassionate. They’re sadly lacking in the latter, and it’s become more difficult to root for them. The Saviors aren’t faceless Stormtroopers, and this week’s episode went a long way to remind us that even the enemy is a real person. There’s very little separating Polly’s crew and Rick’s group, or Polly from Carol.
