Warning: This post contains spoilers from the Sunday, March 25, episode of The Walking Dead.
The Kingdom has fallen. Alexandria is in flames. But the Hilltop was still a safe place for our survivors … until this week’s episode, when the dastardly Saviors brought infection into their midst.
Although they’ve lost their leader (who was last seen as a hostage in the passenger seat of a car driven by Jadis), the Saviors carried on with Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) plan this week to rain down some punishment upon the Hilltop — with one minor tweak from Simon (Steven Ogg), who was sick of letting their enemies off with a warning. Instead, he aimed to eradicate the survivors, bringing in his army under cover of darkness while Maggie (Lauren Cohan) led her people in fierce resistance.
The good news was, the Saviors were ultimately sent packing, thanks to Maggie’s canny strategizing. The bad news? Negan’s repulsive plan to contaminate everyone’s weapons with walker guts actually worked, and while the Hilltoppers took a well-deserved after-battle snooze, everyone who sustained a scratch or stab wound in the melee turned into a flesh-eating zombie, bringing the survivors’ slumber party to a gruesome conclusion — and Carol’s (Melissa McBride) short-lived reunion with her Alexandria boyfriend to an untimely end.
However, the biggest surprise was that Tara (Alanna Masterson) was shot by an arrow, most likely soaked in walk guts, during the battle – and while she didn’t have a fever yet, there’s a large chance she may not survive through next week.
By the time the sun rose, at least a dozen were dead (or undead), and half of Maggie’s prisoners were gone, thanks to an incredibly stupid and poorly-timed vengeance plot by Henry (Macsen Lintz, playing this season’s version of a now-classic The Walking Dead side character, The Idiot Kid Who Doesn’t Listen). Add to that the fact that Morgan (Lennie James) seems to be losing his mind, again, and supplies are running low, and this war for control of the zombie apocalypse is still anyone’s to win.
The Walking Dead airs on AMC Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
