(Spoilers ahead for the Season 9 premiere of “The Waking Dead” on AMC)
One of the big moments from the Season 8 finale of “The Walking Dead” that you may have forgotten about was the creepy scene with Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Jesus (Tom Payne) and Daryl (Norman Reedus), in which they discussed how the war with the Saviors ended and how extremely unhappy they were with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) for sparing Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
Rick could have just let Negan bleed out, but he chose not to. Maggie, whose husband Glen was murdered by Negan, was really mad about it. And she seemed to indicate that she planned to take some kind of action against Rick because of it.
In case you forgot this scene, it went like this:
Maggie: “We have a lot to do. We have to build this place up. Make it work better than before. Make it thrive for the people who live here. We need our strength. The ability to defend ourselves better. We have to have that.”
Jesus: “We will.”
Maggie: “But Rick and Michonne — Rick was wrong to do what he did. Michonne too. So we’re gonna bide our time. Wait for our moment. And then we’re gonna show him.”
Daryl, stepping out of the shadows: “Yeah. We will.”
There’s not much in the Season 9 premiere to indicate that they have plans in motion to oust Rick or otherwise “show him.” Or, at least, there wasn’t a scene in the episode in which they said they were doing something along those lines.
There is movement that could be part of some plan. Daryl, who has been living with the Saviors for a while, is about to move back to Alexandria. Maggie, expressing her frustration with the trade arrangements the Hilltop has with the various other settlements, demanding that she will only help fix the bridge if the Saviors are the ones putting up the manpower.
Those could be pieces in motion, or they could be nothing. It’s possible also that this thread has been abandoned since Andrew Lincoln is exiting the show, or altered in a way that makes whatever Maggie wants to do less sinister than it appeared in last year’s finale. It would probably not help rating much if they had, for example, two of the chief protagonists of the show be responsible for the death of the main protagonist.
Maggie’s threat was one of the more intriguing threads that “The Walking Dead” left dangling at the end of Season 8, though, so let’s hope they don’t just drop it. Given how relatively low key the Season 9 premiere was — Gregory’s well overdue death notwithstanding — there’s no doubt some serious drama on the way soon. We’ll see soon enough.