But there was a twist.
But the aftermath is next year’s problem when the second half ofThe Walking Deadpremieres in February.
So how did we get here?
Credit: Gene Page/AMC
If you were paying attention to the clues sprinkled throughout the hour, you could’ve seen this coming.
Hope alone is never enough.
The Scavengers, meanwhile, are proving once again that it’s silly to rely on them for anything.
Luckily, Carol drives up with Jerry in the passenger seat to rescue Rick from hellfire.
At Alexandria, Michonne is promising Judith she’ll bring back her dad.
She spots Daryl, who claims his plan worked and the Saviors will have no choice but to surrender.
Carl is up in his room, sitting in a corner as he writes a letter to his dad.
As he considers this, the camera pulls back to show a wide shot of his room.
His sleeping bag bears a red patch at the bottom that foreshadows the walker bite.
They silently disembark the car and circle both sides to make a run at cut off whoever it is.
The assailant turns out to be Natania, grandmother to Cyndie.
She knocks over Aaron, but Enid shoots her dead.
Not exactly what I’d call the best negotiation tactic.
Carl is covering up a manhole to the sewers beneath Alexandria when Michonne spots him.
He warns that everyone needs to line up and start apologizing.
The Saviors, however, have already arrived at the Kingdom.
Ezekiel hears gunshots before he runs offstage into hiding.
Maggie and Jesus' convoy, meanwhile, is being overtaken.
They run into a fallen tree blocking the road when Simon leads forces from the Sanctuary to surround them.
A truck drives up to the front ahead of Maggie’s car.
Michonne isn’t okay with allowing the Saviors to claim Alexandria, but Carl says it’s necessary.
“All we need to do is survive tonight,” he says.
It’s gonna happen."
Carl has always struck a nerve with Negan, who sees the kid as a prospective protege.
He’s left speechless again when Carl asks Negan if this is what he saw himself becoming.
Carl rushes down the ladder but ends up falling.
No one does, by the way.
Maggie is having worse luck.
Simon says Hilltop has been chosen to be spared solely because of the crops they produce.
The other option is to return home and start production on the next round of food supplies.
He can’t and instead just whimpers in silence.
Explosions continue to plague Alexandria with Carl running to dodge most of them.
They’re waiting along the road for the Saviors in pursuit.
Dwight, leading the charge, sees a smoke bomb that Daryl threw in the road.
Daryl and the others open fire, and Dwight turns on his own people in the crossfire.
Laura, however, gets the jump on him and shoots him in the arm.
She’s about to kill him when bullets rip the air close by.
She’s able to escape and will likely inform Negan about Dwight’s betrayal.
By this point, Negan and his forces have busted into Alexandria.
He commands his men to take Carl alive while he waits in Rick’s home.
Carl, however, escapes into the sewers under cover from the smoke bombs.
At the Sanctuary, Eugene sneaks into the medical room to awaken Dr. Carson and Gabriel.
He says he won’t be rejoining Rick, but he agrees to help them escape.
Before they close, he tells her to protect the people.
Before she walks off, she tells Jesus to start cultivating the crops.
She warns the Hilltop might have to be the ones to make a final stand.
Morgan sneaks up on the scene from the shadows but does not intervene.
Gavin commands the Saviors to continue loading the trucks and to break Ezekiel’s arms if he tries anything.
Rick arrives solo to witness the chaos.
Negan gets the drop on him, knocking him to the ground and stripping him of his guns.
As Rick dives for his gun, Negan knocks him out of the window, allowing Rick to escape.
That’s when Rick comes up on Michonne.
Rick is able to snap her out of it while the fires from the houses around them rage on.
She leads Rick to the sewers where all the remaining Alexandriansnow including Dwighthave taken refuge.
That’s when they come across Carl and the traveler he saved.
Rick’s son reveals the walker bite and mentions that he got it helping this man get to Alexandria.
The camera pans away as Michonne and Rick fall on Carl and the scene fades to black.
The state of Carl, however, offers more questions to ponder.
What was that Old Man Rick vision we saw in the first episode?
If Carl truly is to die, then it can’t be from the future.
Was it a fever dream?
A hope for the future?
Gimple saidwe’d get an answer about halfway through the season.
We’re now at the halfway mark, so expect something come February.
