The Walking Dead: Is Eugene building a Death Star?
There have been a few occasions this season when The Walking Dead has shared themes with Star Wars. My theory: Eugene is building a Death Star.
Would Eugene help the Saviors make the Sanctuary into an impenetrable fortress? It might look like he is, but my guess is that he has a plan for some subtle subterfuge in his back pocket.
Negan calls Eugene Dr. Smarty Pants for a very good reason. Eugene is smart, and he’s paying more attention than anyone really gives him credit for. Eugene is the guy in the background watching everything. He sees everything, which is why he knew better than to help the wives with their assassination plot.
At the end of “Hostiles and Calamities” Eugene oversees the workers as they put his plan into motion. The creation of these armored Walkers will make them versatile tools in defending the Sanctuary. Negan is counting on Eugene to manufacture bullets and likely other weapons for the Saviors.
As much as Eugene wants to stay safe, it’s safe to assume that he’d rather be back in Alexandria with his friends. That means that all of his work to make the Sanctuary a more secure facility, and all of the work to arm the Saviors, will have to have some kind of a fail safe to ensure that he doesn’t give the Saviors the upper hand.
My Theory: Eugene is Building a Death Star
Anyone who has ever seen Star Wars will recall the moment when Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance make their assault on the Death Star. The Rebels know that one blast in one exact spot will completely unravel the massive weapon, and when Luke hits the money spot the Death Star explodes.
2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story explains the origins of the Death Star and how that one weakness in the Death Star’s design was created and subsequently revealed to the Rebel Alliance.
(Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn’t seen Rogue One)
A man named Galen Erso is the engineer who designed the Death Star. He had fled from the Empire but they found him and forced him to work on the weapon, or he would be killed. Rather than die knowing that the Death Star was going to be created no matter what, Galen Erso worked for the Empire to build their weapon, but unbeknownst to the Empire he was also working to develop a weakness in the system so that it could be destroyed.
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I believe that Eugene is The Walking Dead’s version of Galen Erso. He knows he has to do the job in order to survive. While he’d doing what Negan asks of him, he’s also making plans in the event that his friends come looking for him. Eugene will work to fortify the Sanctuary, but he’ll have some tricks up his sleeve to ensure that either he can escape, or Rick can get in.
I have joked before that Eugene’s situation is akin to Doctor Emmett Brown making weapons for the Libyans in Back to the Future. He needed plutonium so he made them weapons using pinball machine parts. He delivered a product, but it wasn’t the product that they were expecting.
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Negan will expect Eugene to manufacture bullets, and if the bullets don’t work then Eugene’s life is on the line, so Eugene will have to make real bullets and he’ll have to deliver on his promises to make cool weaponry-stuff for Negan. There’s no avoiding that. But if Eugene is the guy calling the shots when it comes to Sanctuary security, he can also simultaneously develop a Plan B for when things go South.
If Eugene has a Plan B, it means that Eugene is to the Sanctuary as Galen Erso was to the Death Star. And that’s why I believe that Eugene is building a Death Star.