In last week’s episode of The Walking Dead, we learn that Rosita was suffering from a stomach bug. No one really thought much of it — in fact, my first thought was that it was a convenient way to explain Rosita’s absence from the episode.
This week, however, we find out that Rosita’s stomach bug is more serious than we were led to believe. She has a fever of 102 degrees, she’s delirious, and Siddiq even has to take her to the infirmary. When Siddiq arrives in the infirmary, however, he finds that it is full of people who are suffering from the same stomach bug. Why is everyone sick all of a sudden?
Remember in last week’s episode when Aaron spotted Gamma near the creek? For some reason, Aaron didn’t kill Gamma, probably because he thought Gamma was not fully committed to The Whisperers and that she could become a potential ally to Alexandria. However, what Aaron clearly seemed to miss is why Gamma was there in the first place. She was contaminating the water supply. Recall, she sliced open a zombie, bled it into the creek, pulled out its guts, and pushed it out in the water.
Water contaminated by zombie blood does not necessarily kill its victims, but it can make them very sick. Recall that Father Gabriel lost sight in one eye and nearly died after being infected by zombie guts.
Alpha’s plan here, however, is not necessarily to kill everyone with the contaminated water. It’s to make them ill. In last week’s episode, she outlined a strategy of defeating Alexandria’s communities by “nicks” instead of all at once.
“The human body is fragile,” she said. “All it takes for the human body to collapse is a few nicks in the right spots.” In other words, sending waves of zombies into Alexandria, crashing a tree through the fence of The Hilltop, and sickening people with contaminated water is all part of a larger plan to wear down the communities, which will make them much easier to defeat.
That is why everyone is sick now? Does that mean the sick will die? Maybe. They’re all apparently red shirts at the moment, except for Rosita, and the actress who plays her, Christian Serratos, is likely to leave the series at some point this season to play Selena in a Netflix series. This may ultimately be how she is written out of the series.
