The Walking Dead
Episode 6.12 “Not Tomorrow Yet”
Directed by Greg Nicotero
Written by Seth Hoffman
Starring Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohen, Steven Yeun, Norman Reedus, Chandler Riggs, Michael Cudlitz, Lennie James
AMC
Air date: Sunday, March 6, 2016, 9pm

Warning – SPOILERS for The Walking Dead Season 6…

A lot happened last week on AMC’s The Walking Dead, where Rick and the Alexandrians went with Jesus back to his home at Hilltop, where they learned more about Negan and his group, The Saviors. Rick and company have guns and ammo, but not enough food. So, in an effort to barter for food with the Hilltoppers, they were considering attacking the Savior’s compound to kill Negan’s people.

This week, in Episode 6.12 “Not Tomorrow Yet,” Rick returns to Alexandria and calls a meeting: It’s time to decide whether they will fight. Keep in mind, The Saviors had already killed Hilltop residents and were holding a hostage, all to extort more food and supplies from the meek Hilltoppers. It’s an us or them situation. But fighting means killing — killing the living, that is.

When it comes to killing the living, it’s not something that Rick’s group are used to, especially the original Alexandria residents, who hadn’t even killed any Walkers before Rick arrived. But, then there’s Carol, who in the past has committed cold-blooded murder for “the getter good.” The former battered-wife turned badass always justified her actions and never seemed to regret, but now, something has changed. She doesn’t seem gung-ho to attack Negan’s compound, and it turns out, she never told Rick about how Morgan was keeping the Wolf guy under guard in an effort to make him “good” instead of extinguishing the very real threat. It’s almost as if Carol was pardoning Morgan’s irresponsible actions in an effort to redeem her own morally ambiguous actions.

The episode actually starts out with a Carol montage, showing her with her happy homemaker persona browsing through the pantry, picking acorns, and baking cookies. When the music stops, we see her walk through the neighborhood delivering her baked goods — acorn beet cookies — which are happily accept by the residents, although when she gets to Tobin’s house, he is reluctant to take them since there’s kids there who are hungry. What happens next and later on in the episode is the unveiling of something between Tobin and Carol — did anyone see that coming?! It’s funny that last week, everyone was shocked to see Rick and Michonne hook up, which is something that everyone hoped for, yet the unexpected pairing of Carol and Tobin was no biggie. Actually, I would have expected nearly everyone to pair up during the apocalypse, so I’m surprised it’s taking this long.

Another surprise: Abraham breaks Rosita’s heart. What a cruel prick. I mean, we knew he was having feelings for Sasha and it was obviously that was slowly breaking his emotion ties to Rosita, unbeknownst to her. As Abraham is packing his gear, he tells Rosita that he’s “leaving.” She doesn’t understand — where did this come from, she wonders, and you can’t blame her. There were no signs that she could read that his feelings for her had changed; last episode they were in bed together and he told her she was amazing and the greatest ever. Why would she think something was wrong? What was really messed up was that instead of breaking up with her gently, he screams at her that when they first got together he thought she was the last woman in the world, but now she’s not. He storms out leaving Rosita crying and having to deal with an annoying Eugene.

Can we all agree that Abraham never deserved Rosita to begin with?

But Rosita is strong, and I know she can do better (Daryl maybe???).

Anyhow, about that meeting: Rick gives one of his Ricktatorship “We gotta fight” speeches disguised as a democracy. Of course, it’s decided that they’ll go to fight, while pacifist Morgan objects, so he stays behind and apparently does some welding. While Morgan, who ironically happens to be one of their best fighters, ops out of the ambush, pregnant Maggie, who brokered the deal with Hilltop, insists on coming along. As soon as we hear that, we know something’s going to happen with her… and it does, of course.

So, Rick and company go with Andy of Hilltop to Negan’s compound, where Andy trades the fake head of Hilltop leader Gregory (who’s alive and recuperating from an attack; the head is a Walker’s) for the hostage they had. The trade works, but that’s not the end of the plan. No, they must continue on inside and kill Negan’s people, while Carol and Maggie guard the perimeter. There’s lots of gunfire and bloodshed, and Rick’s people must kill the living the way they’ve been killing the dead — ruthlessly — and they do. This is something that’s going to change them, especially people like Health and Glenn who’ve never done this before. An eerie scene show Glenn knifing two sleeping men, and then later he and Health machine gun a bunch of people down.

In the end, it looks like Rick’s group is victorious, and no one even got a scratch. It was a successful ambush, except for the last scene where the group is getting ready to leave, and a man on a motorcycle comes riding out. Daryl takes him down, but they find a Walkie Talkie next to him — a woman’s voice on the other end warns them to put their weapon’s down. Rick doesn’t plan to comply, and instead says they should come out to talk. “We’re not coming out, but we will talk,” the women says, “We have a Carol and a Maggie.”

There was just no way Rick’s group was going to get out of this fight without a loss. And there’s no way that come next episode, both Carol and Maggie will make it out alive. My guess it Maggie won’t make it. While they were on guard, Carol was angry that Maggie was there and told the pregnant women that she didn’t belong there. It would seem that Carol was referring to Maggie being with child, but telling Maggie “you’re supposed to be someone else” could mean that Maggie shouldn’t be there on the mission to murder people.

The last episode was so emotional on so many levels, that this episode didn’t really hit me the same way. I feel like we didn’t need another look at Carol’s psyche and that the ambush went a little too smoothly, even with Carol and Maggie being taken hostage. I went into this feeling like someone had to be sacrificed, and while Maggie is pregnant, the show already has a baby (Rick’s daughter Judith), and Maggie’s death would hit the group very hard. Also, Negan is supposed to be the worst villain on The Walking Dead, which means that it’s highly possible that Maggie’s death might be the worse we’ve seen so far.

By the way, it seems like Rick and company are under the impression that Negan was killed in the ambush, since in the aftermath, they were like, “I wonder which one was Negan.” We know better, but it’s very naive of the group to believe that they got everyone, including the leader. Also, while I understand why they chose to attack Negan’s compound — this is desperate times after all — it was poor planning that they believed that this place was the only area Negan’s gang occupied.

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