Surviving The Walking Dead: Perfect Alexandria Shows Its Cracks

“Don’t Let Go” were the next-to-last words of one moderately beloved, now deceased, character on last night’s episode of The Walking Dead. His actual last words: “Ahhhhhhh! Ahh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhh! Ahhhhhhh!”

Noah unknowingly set his death sentence when he expressed his future ambitions in a conversation with Alexandria’s resident architect Reg (the husband of the community’s leader Deanna). Noah wants to learn about building things. Reg tells him, “So you’re in it for the long haul.” A person can dream. The future only exists in blips, though, and Alexandria has all the false fixings of perfection. It has some people convinced that long term goals are worth planning.

Trying to re-acclimate into so-called society is futile. There’s been an almost obscene sense of normalcy since Rick and the group touched down in this gated community and taped their Real World: Alexandria confessionals and assumed their positions as protectors. The beginning really starts at the end of this episode when Father Gabriel makes a cowardly confession to Deanna about Rick and the group.

Gabriel tells Deanna that Rick’s team shouldn’t be trusted because they’re not good people (“Good” is relative, Gabe!) and they “don’t deserve paradise.” He says, “The day will come when they put their own lives before yours and everyone else’s. And they will destroy everything you have here.” Overselling it a bit, Gabe! It doesn’t matter because there will be consequences. This show tends to eradicate cowards, plus Maggie is there eavesdropping on this backstabbing the whole time. After Tyreese, someone was bound to die again soon. Here’s What Would Jezebel Do?

1) Would we stay in Alexandria or bounce like Sasha?

Totally stay. Rick and the group were suspicious as soon as they arrived. No one more than Sasha, who was so spooked by the calm that she took her chances in the wild with a dramatic exit in the previous episode. Not something I would do, but you go on ahead… Considering she’s lost her boyfriend and brother, there’s an overwhelming loneliness about her. Socializing is the least of her priorities, as evidenced by her meltdown during the welcoming party.

Alexandria is a false place, like Father Gabriel says, but not in the way he says it—”I’m afraid that false light is here inside these walls,” he tells Deanna, in reference to Rick’s group. We know they’re not the false ones, of course. Some of the crew has accepted this temporary home and settled in—most notably, Michonne has a weird serenity about her now. Carol is just…different. Beardless Rick has been hired as the constable to protect the community, as only he can. Showers are a great thing to have again (that would be my first order of business after gorging on food). And yet Daryl still refuses to let go of his scruff.

Carl has a few kids he can call friends, which has to be both scary and a humongous relief for him. As the youngest (besides baby Judith), he’s at the most impressionable age. He has to learn how to fit in in a much more complex way, having had no real social circle before.

2) Would we abandon Noah and Glenn in the walker glass trap?

Nah. And now Nicholas has to die. The more we see new people, the more we realize that Rick and his crew are the most unflinchingly loyal out of any of the communities they’ve encountered. They don’t leave their people behind. While Glenn, Noah, Tara and Eugene are off on a supply mission with Alexandria’s Aidan and Nicholas, they come across a warehouse that’s swimming with walkers. Aidan becomes a victim of his own stupidity and selfishness and dies at the hand of walkers.

Nicholas is too scared to stay and fight so he leaves Noah and Glenn behind in the glass walls of death instead of following through with Glenn’s breakout plan. A walker gets ahold of Noah’s feet and it’s over from there.

Noah tells Glenn not to let go, but it’s too late. For Glenn, there’s no escape either, from watching this death. (He could’ve closed his eyes, I guess.) The walkers rip open Noah’s body and when they show his mouth ripping apart, my face also contorts. Glenn similarly, in horror, kind of can’t look away. Aidan’s and Noah’s deaths were so supremely bloody and horrific that I wonder if the crew has, like, tons of extra blood laying around that they need to use.

Again, Rick’s group has remained decent human beings in comparison to others. Their close-knit nature has so far been key to survival. But how much are we conditioned to abide by his rules? We’re technically family members, too. As much as we think for ourselves, much of Rick’s philosophies and tactics have swayed us and blurred our morals. I can’t help thinking how our own “What would I do” thoughts as viewers might be different if we were following a crew with a different set of morals.

3) What is happening to Carol?

Carol was already far gone by the time the group got to Alexandria, but this is a whole other phase of gone-ness. There’s almost a blankness about her, like she’s walking around numb. A zombie in a way. The greedy ass kid Sam—who’s still nagging her about baking cookies even after she threatened him and scared the living shit out of him with gruesome walker stories—turns out to be living in an abusive household. Carol figures this out in a talk with Sam when he asks to have one of the guns she’s hoarding. Carol’s natural logistical thought is that his dad needs to die.

Hers are the final words of this episode, to Rick: “You’re gonna have to kill him.” It makes sense, in a Carol way. That’s what happens to abusers. I already got the sense that Rick’s group would shake up and claim Alexandria at some point down the road. It’s happening.