The first half of season eight of The Walking Dead began with Rick and Co. leading a horde of zombies to the Sanctuary. It was a crucial element of their strategy to defeat Negan: With hundreds of zombie’s surrounding Negan’s compound, they weren’t able to get out and supplies were not able to get in. Negan and the Saviors, in fact, were pinned inside the Sanctuary through the first seven episodes until Eugene devised a plan to clear the area of zombies and the Saviors could escape.
The plan was successful, too. Negan and his men escaped and commenced their destruction of Alexandria in the midseason finale. Negan gave Eugene big ups for his plan — which involved Eugene making bullets for the Saviors — but we never got to see exactly how The Saviors managed to clear the zombies. There’s a gap between the moment that Eugene comes up with a plan and the moment in which Rick and Jadis return to the Sanctuary to find that the Saviors had escaped. Meanwhile, Morgan — who was acting as a sharp-shooter for Rick — had also disappeared from his post, though we were left wondering what had happened to him, as well.
In this clip from the upcoming midseason finale (originally posted by IGN), The Walking Dead jumps slightly back in the timeline and fills in that gap.
Huh. That was it? The Saviors just mowed them down with their machine guns from an upper floor? So, the only thing that Eugene did, really, was to manufacture the ammunition necessary to kill the zombies (presumably, the Saviors had expended all their bullets in the original shootout with Rick and Co. in the season premiere). I’d hardly consider that the work of a strategic genius, and I wonder why the Saviors didn’t give Eugene access to the bullet-making machinery much sooner? At least, the clip does explain why Morgan left his post. Last we saw of him, Morgan had resurfaced outside the gates of The Kingdom, where he is presumably poised to rescue Ezekiel when the series returns.
In other words, while Eugene’s plan did allow the Saviors to escape and destroy Alexandria, it appears that the plan may have also inadvertently put Morgan in a position to save Ezekiel, so at least something good came out of it for Rick and his allies.
Meanwhile, The Walking Dead returns next Sunday, February 25th with its midseason finale. The back eight episodes will eventually lead into Morgan’s departure from the series and his first appearance on Fear the Walking Dead, in what may be an instance in which Fear and The Walking Dead not only share a character but a storyline.
(Via IGN)
