As far back as the third season, the writers explored the idea of what it might take to turn a man with good intentions into a monster.  The Governor was the anti-Rick, the kind of morally questionable leader that would rally the troops to exterminate a potential threat with no quarter.  The potential was there for Rick to go down the same path; all it would take was a threat to their survival sufficient enough to push him over the edge.  Starvation is a pretty compelling motivator.

              

 

For all intent purposes, the arrival of the herd, the Wolves, and all the internal challenges to Rick’s growing leadership of Alexandria has pushed everyone to the edge.  They can’t sustain themselves without making concessions and negotiations.  Even so, agreeing to commit wholesale slaughter is far beyond anything that Team Grimes has done in the past.  It’s always been a matter of not starting a fight but ending it.  The Saviors may have made themselves known now and then, but they haven’t come for Alexandria at all.  This is a very different situation.

 

So I’m surprised folks like Tara didn’t say something about how familiar the scenario feels.  She heard the Governor make a speech a lot like the one Rick makes at the start of this episode.  At least on some level, the Governor was willing to let Team Grimes walk away from the prison and survive.  Rick’s plan is far less forgiving.  Granted, it’s also “cleaner”, in terms of wiping out A to get supplies B, but it is a very different kind of mission than we’ve seen from Rick in the past.

 

 

It’s easy enough to point to the behavior we’ve seen from the Saviors and conclude that there’s not much room for misunderstanding.  But the lack of good intel prior to the slaughter means that Team Grimes has no idea how many people are still left on the other side, and that includes Negan, who is not going to be happy about this (and justifiably so).  Frankly, didn’t we all want Rick’s little army to wipe out the Wolves to the last man for doing precisely the same thing in Alexandria?

 

All that said, it’s how the various team members deal with the demands of pre-emptive warfare that makes this interesting.  Glenn kills his first actual person and the pain of that decision is written all over his face.  (Let’s hope that doesn’t become literal by season’s end.)  Father Gabriel did his very best Samuel L. Jackson impression, and quite frankly, that might have redeemed him entirely based on the line delivery alone.  In between we have Rick, Michonne, and Daryl acting as the best post-apocalyptic hit squad imaginable.

 

It might seem like I’m being critical of the episode; I am most assuredly not.  This sort of moral ambiguity is precisely what this story is all about, and I can’t wait to see how Rick’s plan ends up having unforeseen consequences.  Right now, Carol and Maggie (who never should have gone on the damn mission) are the ones likely to experience those consequences first, but there’s not one chance that this will be over soon.  For all intent purposes, Alexandria’s first steps into a bigger world told a very violent story, and if hearts and minds were at all a consideration, couldn’t the Saviors themselves portray themselves as the victims?

 

It’s also worth noting that the second half of this episode was some of the most intense material for the series to date.  It’s astounding that Team Grimes came away with hardly a scratch.  It more than made up for the plodding relationship-driven scenes in the first half.  In particular, Abraham’s break-up dialogue made me hope that he was not long for this world, if only so we don’t have to endure more of that nonsense!