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The Walking Dead 9.03 Review – ‘Warning Signs’

October 22, 2018 | Posted by Katie Hallahan
The Walking Dead - Warning Signs
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The Walking Dead 9.03 Review – ‘Warning Signs’  

Tonight on The Walking Dead, tensions rise to the breaking point that is surprisingly quiet and calm for a number of key members of this community. Some bend to Rick’s party line that every life matters, but others decide some people have forfeited their right to that courtesy.

The plot: When the obviously murdered and newly-turned body of Justin, the latest Savior to go missing, a manhunt is on to find who killed him. A fight nearly breaks out at the bridge, prevented only when Rick rides in to break it up (abandoning his gosh darn adorable family fun day), and they begin searching for answers and killers. Suspicion falls on Anne/Jadis, and when Gabriel is the only one to stand up for her, she sneaks off to the junkyard and gets her satellite phone to call the helicopter driver to try and get herself picked up to go who knows where, but first she needs to deliver “an A.” Gabriel follows her, but she knocks him out when he says he’s going to tell Rick, and presumably he’s going to be her ticket out of here. Back in the main plot, Daryl is also suspected, but is firm that he didn’t do it as well. A grid search in pairs commences, resulting in another Savior going missing, and they all know that if they can’t find her, the Saviors will walk off the job of finishing the bridge. While Carol and Rick encoutner some uppity Saviors whom they overcome but do not kill, Maggie and Daryl finds signs that lead them to the answers: the Oceansiders are killing off the Saviors who killed the men in their settlement. They claim this one is the only one left, and that it was Maggie dealing with Gregory in her own way that they realized Rick’s rules were not the only rules. When they learn the woman killed Cyndie’s 11-year-old brother, Maggie and Daryl walk away and don’t stop them from killing her. Not only that, the two are now emboldened as well as Maggie decrees they tried it Rick’s way, but now it’s time to go see Negan.

This episode had yet more Rick at his peak of Rickness, but I want to talk about Maggie first. At the end of last season, we had this somewhat awkward hint of darkness with Maggie that foreshadowed all of this. I wasn’t a big fan of it then, and I still wish they hadn’t shown us that but for different reasons now. Now, that scene seems to make it clear that Maggie planned all along to turn against Rick, and if it didn’t exist, the developments in tonight’s episode would feel more natural. I kind of want to pretend it never happened, really, because this works much better and feels more true to Maggie without it and here’s why.

Maggie has lost literally her entire family, and there has been literally nothing she has been able to do about any of it. From the fire at her father’s farm claiming the lives of many of them, to watching her father being beheaded by the Governor, to Beth being killed moments before they would’ve been reunited, to Glenn being gruesomely murdered by Negan right in front of her. This on top of countless friends lost to the apocalypse, as well as plenty of her own close brushes with death at the hands of the living and dead alike. We know Maggie’s a good person, we know these people she lost were all good people, and we know that she has persevered through it all and come out a stronger person for it. But we’ve rarely, if ever, truly seen the toll this has taken on her. There have been tears, there’s been anger, there’s been rising above it, all of this is true. But how much can one person take before they break? How many times can a good person see the other good people she loves killed before asking why does she bother? All those other times, the people responsible paid for what they did, even if it wasn’t at her hands. But this time, Negan was allowed to live. The latest one, the one who took away her husband, the father of her unborn child, a piece of her future, and the one who seemingly everyone agreed should die…was allowed to live. He’s the one that Rick just had to go and make an example out out of! And now, accustomed to living in this bloody, violent time where they are the ones to take justice into their hands, this blood, violent man who stole so much from her personally is allowed to live.

Maggie’s tried to be okay with it. She’s tried to focus on her community, her newborn son, tried to move along. She trusts Rick and she understands the world he’s trying to build and why. She knows all the reasons, she even agrees with them herself. But she doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t believe it. After everything that’s happened, having this one piece of retribution, of justice, stolen from her has been the last straw. And in taking back what little she could by hanging Gregory, the floodgates are suddenly opening up. Because of that, the Oceansiders decided they could take their revenge on the people they believed deserved it. And seeing them take their revenge in turn has inspired her to finally reject Rick’s rules completely, and I completely get why. She’s been picked at and worn away by her losses, mollified by knowing those who did these things got their own karmic endings, and she cannot abide this man who did so much wrong being allowed to live, and having no choice or say in the matter herself. In a way, it’s shocking it’s taken this long for her to snap, and it’s a testament to fact that she is a good person who does understand what Rick’s doing that it did. Which is why I think she’ll come back around, and likely at that point realize she cannot still be here without these contradictions destroying her entirely, and that’s when she’ll take Georgie up on her offer and leave. To save not just the community, but her soul as well. Because what she told Cyndie when she first found her was true: this won’t stop with this ‘last’ Savior’s death and they all know it. An ey for an eye truly does make the world blind and someone has to stop the cycle of violence and death by choosing another way and putting the greater good ahead of their own desires.

Which brings us back over to Rick, the one who’s managed to do so. Only thanks to Carl, of course, and his legacy is all over this episode. The small touches of how Rick remembers his son are simple, silent, but speak volumes: he pauses to touch his son’s handprint on the wood piece on the wall. He picks a ripe tomato and brings it to Carl’s grave, itself a simple circle of stones that has long since grown over with grass. He spends most of a day with his family, Michonne and Judith, playing, picnicking, reading, being happy together in their new world. He even admits to Michonne that he’s ready to welcome the possibility of a child, of another new life, into their lives. Though the idea of killing Negan still weighs on him every day, as he admits to Carol, he doesn’t do it. He is living the life Carl wanted, and not for nothing, he sure looks a lot happier than Maggie does. The same can be said of Carol, who is slowly embracing a new life with Ezekiel. When it comes down to the wire for her in this episode, she chooses Rick’s philosophy, “Every life counts now.” It’s worth pointing out that Carol had to spend a good portion of last season working out her demons to get to this point, though. Still, how often have we seen Carol and Rick smile this season already compared to Maggie and Daryl? I don’t blame those two for having trouble letting go, but it’s easy to see that not being able to do so is making them miserable–and yes, they’ve tried. It cannot be said that they haven’t. But what’s worked for Carol and Rick hasn’t worked for them, so they’re determined to try the one thing they think will work: killing Negan.

Will it help? They might feel better, for a time. But ultimately, I think they’d know they’d done something for selfish reasons that hurt the greater community. Maggie and Daryl claim at the end that “we tried Rick’s way,” and they have, but they’re still saying this as an excuse. They say it to imply that Rick’s way hasn’t worked, but we have clearly been shown that it has. The communities overall are peaceful, they’re working together, this area is safer for everyone now, including compared to when it was under Negan’s rule. There are tensions, sure, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working. And I don’t think Maggie was wrong to kill Gregory either–he had indeed wasted every chance he was given, and he tried to kill her both indirectly and directly. She sentenced him, she did everything she could to make it a clear-cut and transparent decision that was not come to lightly or hastily. Unfortunately, the Oceansiders saw that as a sign they could exact their own personal revenge, and now Maggie in turn is seizing upon that. Rick’s way didn’t work for her and Daryl personally, not globally, and the reality is that that is a them-problem, not an everyone-problem. Unfortunately, they’re willfully ignoring the damage it will do in order to assuage their own grief, which is going to make it an everyone-problem.

The need for Michonne’s charter is clearer than ever, since without that agreement in place, there’s been nothing to stop anyone from enacting their own kind of justice aside from courtesy. And no, a piece of paper isn’t technically anything more than that, but it does bring formality into the picture and establishes that everyone is trusting, and watching, everyone else. Really, what we should all be taking away from this is that these people could really stand to find a few therapists so they could better work through their problems without always killing one another!

Other Thoughts:
– Seriously, that whole sequence of the family fun day was heartwarming, adorable, and heartbreaking at the same time because we know it won’t last much longer.
– I’m liking how they’re setting up certain character to carry the torch Rick lit, namely Michonne and Carol with a side of Alden. Ezekiel will be on that side of things, too, I kind of take that as a given though we haven’t seen much of him in the leadership role lately. (More for lack of time than anything, I think.)
– Who is Anne/Jadis calling? Will this become the new threat that unites the groups again after Rick is gone? I hope Gabriel doesn’t die, this feels like a crappy way to go out after everything else he’s made it through.
– Lot of great moments for Rick tonight, and I loved him calling out how Daryl let him live way back in Season 1 despite what he did to Merle–because, as we know now, Daryl knew deep down who was in the right. I hope he comes around to that kind of clarity here, too.
– What do you think of what the Oceansiders chose to do? Justified, or going too far? Were they wrong to step outside of the established order?
– Okay, we’ve got 2 Rick episodes left, so let’s start talking theories of how he’ll die. Sound off in the comments!

8.0
The final score: review Very Good
The 411
Another really good episode! Slower-paced than the last two, but I enjoyed that build-up and steady reveal of what this episode was leading to. I think this showed very well how they were all trying to stick to the plan of peacefulness but that it just didn't work for some as well as others, and the reasons for that are real and valid, even if they're still not really excuses. I don't like what the Oceansiders did, or what Maggie and Daryl are planning to do, but I do understand why they're doing it. I also understand what it's going to cost them if they go through with it--we're already seeing how quickly things are breaking down now these revenge killings have begun. Also, seriously, that heartwarming family fun day montage. TWD doesn't go to the other extreme and do humor or happy very often, but when they do, it really does hit you that much harder for it!
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The Walking Dead, Katie Hallahan