The Walking Dead: Moving forward, no choice

On The Walking Dead the phrases ‘moving forward’ and ‘no choice’ were used quite a bit during the third episode. Let’s look at the meaning behind them.

Rick changed the plan to have Michonne and Glenn lead the small group of Alexandrians back home. He would get in front of the herd with the RV. He told Daryl to keep going. Everything was about moving forward, not turning back.

He told Michonne and Glenn to try to save the group, but if they don’t all make it, they have to keep going.  Michonne actually tells the group when they are scared and wondering about what might be waiting for them back at home, “We have no choice, we’ve got to keep going forward.”

What makes Rick’s cut and run attitude different from the cut and run of Aiden and Nicholas or the construction crew? It’s the no choice. That’s what Michonne teaches Heath later. Sometimes you have no choice. No choice is what makes the choices for them in this survival world sometimes.

At one point Daryl turns back to see what went wrong back at home while Sasha and Abraham continue forward with the mission.  Later he turns back after Rick gives him a mini-speech about how not continuing because they were afraid would be for themselves and they needed to make decisions for the people back at home. In other words, they needed to move forward.

This little speech, in my opinion, showed Rick isn’t as crazy as he has sounded. He’s not as us and them as he once was. The us is changing to include some of the Alexandrians. Those who step up and want to be us, too.

We have no choice, we’ve got to keep going forward

If Rick was truly thinking every man for himself, or thinking Alexandria was really in danger from the Wolves and that horn,  he’d go back for Judith and Carl and take the rest of the group and get out of Alexandria for good.

He’s thinking long-term. He’s thinking of Carl and Judith and all of them. Of Alexandria as a home. Of moving forward, not backward. Of having no choice but to trust the others to take care of each other back home. To take care of themselves. To give him and Sasha and Abraham and Daryl the opportunity to deal with this mission that might give them another day to fight to go forward again.

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