After struggling under the thumb of Negan for much of the seventh season, the midseason finale of The Walking Dead saw Rick finally regain his fighting spirit. He, Michonne, Carl and the rest of the gang marched back to The Hilltop to reunite with Maggie, Sasha and Jesus to come up with a game plan to take on Negan. With the Alexandrians and The Hilltop allied now, they’re still in need of at least one other community: The Kingdom.
The rub with The Kingdom, however, is that Ezekiel is in no mood to fight. In the winter finale, we saw Ezekiel’s security guard, Richard, travel to Carol’s place in the hopes of recruiting her and Morgan into the cause. By convincing Carol to join the effort against Negan, Richard had hoped that Carol “could convince Ezekiel to bring The Kingdom to fight.”
Carol declined, wanting no more part of any violence. Morgan also bowed out, hoping instead that The Kingdom could somehow build on their arrangement with The Saviors and generate peace. A disgusted Richard left angry and frustrated with both Carol and Morgan. “When they turn on us, and they will,” Richard spat, “their blood is going to be on your hands!” Richard then sulked back to his hidden trailer and pouted.
That’s where we are with The Kingdom at the moment. We can, however, assume that Ezekiel and The Kingdom will eventually join the fight against The Saviors, but the question is: How?
Potential Spoilers
There are three elements that have to come together for this to work: 1) Carol has to get her thirst for violence back; 2) Morgan has to understand that going to war against The Saviors saves more lives than it loses; and 3) Ezekiel has to be convinced to bring The Kingdom to the fight.
Here’s how I see that playing out, and some of it hinges on this split second shot from the season 7B trailer:
This is a screen shot of what appears to be Daryl beating the hell out of Richard. Now, why would Daryl want to beat up Richard? Internet speculation suggests that Richard’s plan to get Ezekiel involved in the war effort against The Saviors might be to kill Carol and pin it on The Saviors, thereby provoking Ezekiel to battle. I don’t think that Richard will ever manage to kill Carol, but he may try. Daryl may catch wind of that plan, or he may catch him in the act. That would inspire Daryl to beat up — or even potentially kill — Richard.
That won’t be enough to compel Carol to fight, but once Daryl and Carol are reunited, Carol will find out about Glenn and Abraham. That should be enough to compel Carol to go to war. Once she understands exactly how brutal Negan is, she’ll regain that delicious blood thirst we love so much in Carol. Likewise, Carol’s involvement should be enough to convince Ezekiel to get involved, as Richard had previously suggested.
There’s still one holdout, however, and that is Morgan. What could possibly convince a man of peace to go to war against Negan? The murder by Negan or his men of Morgan’s new protege, Ben, of course:
It won’t be a straight-up murder, however. Rather, Ben will likely get into an altercation with a member of The Saviors, and at one point, have an opportunity to kill The Savior, but remembering what he learned from Morgan and his copy of The Art of Peace, Ben will allow The Savior to live. That will be a fatal mistake. Morgan will witness it, and Morgan will finally put aside his bullsh*t philosophy and join the war effort.
Don’t expect the final war to take place in season seven, however. The back eight episodes will probably be all about forming the alliance necessary to take on Negan, as Andrew Lincoln explained to The Hollywood Reporter:
“The back eight episodes are a little bit like the Magnificent Seven — or the Magnificent Eight. It’s very much about trying to forge relationships and getting other communities in order. But there is the small matter of we need some guns.”
In order words, the combination of Alexandria, The Hilltop, and The Kingdom likely won’t be enough to defeat Negan, at least not until they join forces with Oceanside, who possess all the weapons they would presumably need to win a war against The Saviors.
There’s still one more potential community to bring into the alliance, as well, one possibly ran by a man or woman wearing this pair of boots.
The Walking Dead returns in February.