The Walking Dead Is Giving Up On Rick Grimes Vision

The Walking Dead season 10's latest episode reveals that characters, especially Alexandria's leaders, are starting to give up on Rick Grimes' vision.

Characters on The Walking Dead may already be giving up on Rick Grimes' vision for the future. In The Walking Dead season 8, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) ruthlessly fought against the Saviors in the All-Out War. Rick's efforts were largely driven by his deep-seated hatred for Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who Rick desperately wanted dead. But Carl's death changed Rick, and caused him to embrace Carl's ideals. And so, Rick worked to build a better, more civilized world and tried to set an example for everyone by allowing Negan to live.

In The Walking Dead season 10, episode 10, "Stalker", the people of Alexandria captured Gamma (Thora Birch) and threw her in jail. Gamma ultimately proved cooperative, but Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Rosita (Christian Serratos) were initially reluctant to believe her. To put the fear in Gamma, Gabriel told her that he killed Dante (Juan Javier Cardenas) and explained that he'd kill her too if she failed to convince him of her sincerity. In a meeting with other high-ranking Alexandria members, in which they discussed their plan to defeat the Whisperers, Gabriel used Gamma's cooperation to prove that the Whisperers can be beaten. Gabriel said that since they "broke" Gamma, they can break others as well.

Gabriel has emerged as a leader ever since Rick's "death" in season 9, and with Michonne (Danai Gurira) gone for the time being, it's obvious that everyone in Alexandria is looking to Gabriel as its unequivocal leader. But as leader, Gabriel isn't trying to uphold Rick's vision. In the meeting, Gabriel talked about breaking their enemies by "pulling teeth" and "taking fingers" to get them to give out information. Also, there's the fact that Gabriel killed Dante. At first, it seemed that this may have been a secret that only he and Rosita knew about, but now it's not so clear. Gabriel doesn't refrain from admitting his role in Dante's death to Gamma.

In a later conversation, Rosita expressed her reservations about Gabriel's tactics, but didn't press the issue. So far, Gabriel isn't facing any real opposition to his new approach. This may signal that the conflict with the Whisperers has already pushed the people of Alexandria to the point where they're no longer holding on to the vision Rick had for them - and now embracing torture instead. Gabriel's talk of killing and torturing prisoners goes against what Rick wanted for them. It remains to be seen what others will think of Gabriel's recent decision-making.

Executing and torturing enemies wouldn't be so surprising in a post-apocalyptic series if The Walking Dead hadn't tried so hard to move on from that. Carl even died so that Walking Dead could reach this point. Carl's death happened so that Rick would spare Negan and start looking to building a civilized world. The war with the Whisperers and Gabriel's determination to defeat them has jeopardized that vision. Is The Walking Dead really ready to go back to the way things were after just one full season of them living Rick's idea of a better life? Time will tell.