Should Oceanside help fight Negan in The Walking Dead season 8?

Rick’s group may have missed the opportunity of an alliance with another group in season 7 of The Walking Dead: the women from Oceanside.

A whole episode in season 7 of The Walking Dead was spent on setting up the role of the women of Oceanside in the narrative – much to some viewers’ chagrin, as many regularly complain of ‘bottle episodes’ that feature only one main character (in this case, Tara).

Yet, there was little pay-off in the end: after a long wait, Tara predictably yielded to the temptation of breaking her promise to keep the existence of the camp a secret. She chose to act in the interest of her own ‘family’, and in only a few scenes, the story was over: Rick and his group invaded the village in force, took the guns, and left.

Disappointingly, there was no real effort made to negotiate with the Oceanside community – apart from a hasty attempt by Tara to talk Natania into surrendering, at gunpoint, with the threat of an imminent invasion by Rick’s group. Which hardly qualified as ‘negotiating’, as Natania and Cyndie were barely given two minutes to think things over, and had no chance to put the proposal to the rest of the group.

Wouldn’t Oceanside have been a safer bet than the Scavengers?

One of the reasons for this missed opportunity was, of course, the fact that Tara took so long to finally reveal the existence of this group to her friends. This meant that, once she finally let the cat out of the bag, there was little time left to negotiate anything. In short, it seems that Rick’s poor decision to throw in his lot with the Scavengers, though he knew nothing about them, was only made worse by Tara’s equally poor decision to remain quiet until it was too late.

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Rick did not have all the elements to base his decision on, but Tara did: on the one hand, a group whose loyalties they knew nothing about, who almost killed Rick and who basically sent the Alexandrians on a mission to find guns for them… On the other hand, a group who hated the Saviors passionately and had a huge arsenal already at their disposal. Surely, the option of trying to strike a deal with Oceanside instead of, or even in addition to, the deal with the Scavengers should have seemed attractive enough in those circumstances?

Of course, apart from the obvious misgivings she had about breaking her promise, Tara may have been worried that negotiations with Oceanside would prove difficult. The community had shown to be extremely reluctant to welcome strangers, or, in fact, to get involved in anyone’s business. Their leader, Natania, seemed almost impossible to win over to the cause.

Natania was not alone in Oceanside, though, and Tara must have known that some of the women might be tempted to have a go at Negan. At the very least, their history of oppression at the hands of the Saviors was a pretty solid guarantee that they hated them too, and would never betray Rick and his group to them – which was more than could be said for the Scavengers.

Will Oceanside join the ‘triple alliance’ of Rick/Ezekiel/Maggie in season 8?

So, the Alexandrians may have missed the opportunity of an alliance with Oceanside in season 7? But could it still happen in season 8? The decision of the Alexandrians to invade the village and take all the guns by force, leaving the women defenceless, may have compromised this.

Yet, when Tara brought Rick and the group to Oceanside, several of the women clearly said they were willing to fight. Cyndie and Beatrice seemed already convinced. Cyndie clearly told Tara as much at the end of the episode, but explained: ‘I want to go with you. Some of us do, but not all of us, and it has to be all of us’.

Natania’s authority is now seriously undermined. She was unable to stop Rick from stealing all the guns, and everyone saw Cyndie, her own grand-daughter, hit her to stop her from killing Tara.

Given a little time, it is perfectly possible that Cyndie and Beatrice will manage to convince the rest of the women to join in the fight – just as Jesus and Maggie were able to overrule Gregory at the Hilltop.

It is certainly worth giving it a try. In spite of the welcome reinforcements brought by the Kingdom and the Hilltop, if the Alexandrians are to fight Negan in an ‘all-out war’, they will need all the manpower – or ‘womanpower’ – they can get.