One of the downsides of knowing you’re “safe”, as a writing staff, is the temptation to give little or no concern to the need for a sense of urgency.  It’s been noted on plenty of other productions, but for a series that tends towards a decompressed pace of storytelling, taking that approach even further going into a season finale is frustrating to the audience. 

I had every reason to expect that the clash between Rick and Pete would take place in this episode, and that the incident at the warehouse would only serve to complicate how Team Grimes’ actions as a whole would be perceived.  What I wasn’t expecting was a handful of pertinent scenes leading into the confrontation at the very end of the episode.  At the very least, I was hoping that Daryl and Aaron would run into the Wolves or we’d get some indication that the threat was impending.


Anyone familiar with this story arc from the source material has to be wondering how they plan on stuffing the obvious next steps into the finale.  Is it just going to focus on Alexandria’s decisions regarding Rick and the rest of his group, or will they finally have Daryl’s subplot also come to fruition?  The resolution of the question of Rick’s presence in the community is rather closely tied to a convergence of events in the original version, so if they strip away too many layers, it could be disappointing.

Meanwhile, the writers continue the slow but relatively steady exploration of how Team Grimes is (or is not) integrating into Alexandria.  Already it seems impossible to imagine that the group would somehow be back into the grind of everyday survival on the road, so that’s not a likely outcome.  Instead, the question is more: under what circumstance will the gang end up staying?  Will it be as conquerors, or as partners?  If push comes to shove, is there any reason to suspect that the Alexandrians would be able to resist a coup?


It’s even an open question whether they would resist all that much.  Sure, they have plenty of weapons, but they can barely use them.  Team Grimes is not only keeping their skills sharp, but they have massive psychological trauma driving them to keep up those skills and find a way to stay safer behind those walls.  And Sasha’s the one in the watchtower.  Alexandria is so used to the notion of accepting the bad to maintain the good that they would probably roll over under any meaningful resistance.  Which begs the question: would any of this internal drama matter one bit if there was a sense of external threat?  





Some folks are worried that Daryl and Aaron might run into a certain someone, but it’s way too early for that to be effective.  That certain someone is a true “endgame” villain for the series and they would be well-advised to let the events unfold naturally as they did in the source material.  However, given how storylines are being rearranged, I could see the Wolves following Daryl and Aaron back to Alexandria.  That would perhaps satisfy one of the items that I feel is currently missing from the proceedings.