With tensions boiling over between the Saviors and everyone else, Rick struggles to keep everyone on the same page. It may be too late for the future he imagines. Here’s our review of “Warning Signs”!
“Warning Signs” kicks off with Justin turning into a walker, and the camera makes sure you see that he has a very small hole in the center of his chest. It looks like an arrow wound. He stumbles away and the shot before the credits is a spray painted brick wall that reads:
FINAL WARNING
I feel like this episode, more than any other this season, shows how out-of-touch Rick is with what’s going on around him. The events that happen in “Warning Signs” are a final warning to Rick Grimes, and he doesn’t get it. At the end of the forty-five minutes, he’s just as naive as he was when we started, and that’s peak naivety.
To start the day, Rick goes and visits Carl’s grave. He leaves a tomato there, which is wasteful as hell considering the Sanctuary is in dire need of food. Then he goes back home to see Michonne working on the charter for the communities.
“It’s good you’re leading this place. I’ve been at the bridge. Here, it’s you.”
Rick is convinced that everyone will get to a place of peace like him and Michonne have, and he completely ignores Maggie and Daryl’s grief and anger. I’m not even counting all the other people he’s responsible for because Maggie and Daryl are the most important in his life. If they aren’t on board with his plans, he needs to try and understand them instead of pushing forward.
They discuss Judith’s cough and her need to see Saddiq then plan a family day. Everyone needs a break for family time, but in the midst of all this tension, now doesn’t seem the time for Rick to take a whole day away from the bridge and the problems of the camp.
Before they get started with their day, Rick tells Michonne:
“I can think of another way to build for the future.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
This is a prelude to sex, and I refuse to believe that these two extremely smart and capable individuals would think it’s a wise decision to bring a child into this world that’s so unsettled. This is some bullshit writing ploy so a piece of Rick will live on after his death because we know Judith isn’t truly his blood.
You know what y’all should have done? Kept Carl alive.
I can’t believe this is even being teased as a real direction for them to go, but here we are.
Meanwhile, the camp is in an uproar because they found Justin’s body and make the logical connection between the wound, and his and Daryl’s fights the day before. Now, they want to confront Daryl.
Daryl has no time for their bullshit and is ready to take them on. However, Rick rides in and breaks up the fight before it can get started, and Alden even tells the other Saviors he’ll talk to Rick about giving them weapons until the whole situation is resolved.
Maggie reminds Rick a little while later that part of the agreement was that the Saviors wouldn’t be armed. Rick moves to where Daryl is off to the side, and they have a chat.
I’ll say it now. Daryl Dixon deserves better. I’m proud of him and his growth, but Rick is being an asshole when it comes to Justin’s death and how he questions Daryl.
1. Daryl wouldn’t have shot him and left him to turn.
2. Daryl would have shot him in the middle of the camp. Not in the dead of night like a coward.
I loved that Daryl didn’t back down from Rick during his interrogation.
“Is this the kind of shit you used to do?”
“When I had to?”
“You really think I did it.”
“No. The others do, so I’m making sure.”
“If I’d have killed him, I’d have killed him in plain sight. I don’t know who it is, but I know why, so do you. Bringing all these people together. It was always gonna happen.”
“No, it was the right thing to do. The future belongs to all of us now.”
“Why do they get this future? Glenn don’t or Abraham or Sasha. All the people The Kingdom lost. Hilltop. Oceanside. You ever think about what they want? What they’d do if they could?”
“Yeah, I do. I have. For a long time, I wanted it, too, maybe more than anyone. But killing each other when the world already belongs to the dead is not the way. Not anymore.”
Before he leaves, he goes so far as to tell Daryl that if he just tries to do things his way then other people will follow.
“It might also be the best decision you ever made, including not killing the guy who left your brother on a rooftop to die.”
Rick has some nerve, I’ll tell you. This show has turned into me watching Rick walking into oncoming traffic because he’s grieving and no one has told him that he needs to come out of the garden.
Yes, I’m referencing S4 and him hanging up his gun. That was grieving Rick and he only snapped out of it when something insane happened. I’m afraid that the thing that will make him snap out of it this time will be what leads to his death.
The next part of the plan is to split into pairs and begin searching the woods for any clues as to who is killing Saviors.
Maggie pairs up with Cyndie.
Rick with Carol.
During their walk, Rick tries to see if Carol can help him rationalize what he’s trying to do. They get an alert from Maggie that she’s looking into some activity, and he lets her know that they’ll be in that grid soon.
When group 5 doesn’t show up, they go looking for them and find a woman from Oceanside knocked out and Arat’s missing. Instead of allowing Daryl, who is a tracker, to look from that point, they go back to the camp and come up with a plan to try and find her before the other Saviors realize she’s missing.
Maggie and Daryl team up and Carol and Rick pair up for the search.
Two very different conversations happen.
Rick is again looking for validation from Carol. Carol tells him that the Saviors have to want this, too. Right now, they don’t. He tells her that he has a feeling (every morning) that he needs to kill Negan, but then he remembers all the people they’ve lost along the way, and he knows he needs to honor them.
“To build life. Not take it. It’s us or the dead, and every life counts now.”
The use of the word “honor” isn’t coincidence. The episode where Carl dies is called “Honor”. Saddiq tells Rick that Carl “honored” his mother. Honoring those who died is what will end up killing Rick.
Judd, the Savior who has been causing problems this episode, stumbles out of the woods and grabs Carol. What follows is a short standoff between him, a few other Saviors, and Rick and Carol. He holds a knife to her throat and tells Rick that he wants weapons so they can get back to the Sanctuary safely. They don’t trust him to protect them.
Carol eventually stabs him in the shoulder and gets away. They tell him they’ll take him back to the camp and get him patched up. After they do, though, all the Saviors leave camp, and the bridge isn’t finished.
Meanwhile, Daryl asks Maggie if she really believes in Rick’s philosophy or if she’s just going along with it. Maggie says that she doesn’t know. She can’t let the past go, and Daryl says he hasn’t either.
Along the way, they find a walker with a harpoon in it. Daryl immediately knows who killed Justin and who took Arat. They begin making their way to the first settlement that the women of Oceanside came from.
There they find Cyndie, along with other members of their community, with their weapons pointed at a kneeling Arat.
“Beg like you made them beg.”
The women of Oceanside tell Maggie and Daryl that they’re killing the Saviors that decimated their community. When Daryl tells Cyndie that they’ll get caught, Cyndie says Arat is the last one to kill, and the disappearances will stop.
She goes on to tell Maggie and Daryl that they fought Negan because they couldn’t forget, and when Maggie hung Gregory, they realized that Rick’s rules aren’t the only rules, and they’re taking their revenge.
Maggie tells Arat to say what she said to that 11 year old boy she murdered (Cyndie’s brother), and she does through tears:
No exceptions.
In the end, they walk away, letting the Oceanside women get their vengeance. However, they both know that it’s not true that Arat is the last Savior to cause them problems. There’s still one left.
At the road, Maggie turns to Daryl and says:
“We gave Rick’s way a chance. It’s time to see Negan.”
“All right.”
It’s finally time they made good on their promise from the season 8 finale and kill Negan.
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Back at the trash heap, we find out some interesting things about Anne/Jadis.
She finds a hidden walkie talkie that somehow remains charged, and reaches out to the helicopter people. They tell her she needs to bring an “A” if she wants them to come back.
“No pickups, but the deal still stands. Do you have an A or a B?”
“None. It’s just me, but I’ve paid my share.”
“You’ve been compensated.”
“What will it take?”
“An A.”
Gabriel pops up and asks who she’s talking to and if she killed Justin. She tells him she didn’t kill Justin, but won’t tell him who she was talking to. Soon, she does explain that she was trading people for supplies to help her own people out. She asks Gabriel to choose her over Rick, but he tells her that he’s going to tell Rick everything he knows.
“And all this time, I thought you were a B.”
Then she knocks him out. I guess she’s trading “A” Gabriel for something? Will Rick come to his rescue? Will Anne/Jadis finally go away?
Also, what’s an “A” or “B”. Why does this show keep using the letter “A” but never explaining the use of the letter? Will these mystery people finally bring continuity to the show for us, or will we be wondering who they are until the show ends?
For now, the mystery continues.
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What did you think of “Warning Signs”? Do you think Rick’s path is right or do you think there’s no peace with people like the Saviors?
How will this mentality contribute to Rick’s death later this season?
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.
