The Walking Dead: The fallout from Maggie’s decision to kill Gregory

The consequences to Maggie’s decision to kill Gregory become clear in The Walking Dead episode “Warning Signs” as Oceanside takes action.

After The Walking Dead season 9 premiere I wrote a piece about Maggie’s bold decision to kill Gregory. Though I agree with everyone that the justification to kill Gregory was there, the optics of how it all played out it made it clear that Maggie’s decision would come back to haunt her. The incident was noteworthy because Maggie had a choice to kill Gregory or lock him up and she opted to kill him. Now we see that Maggie’s actions did indeed lead to some hefty consequences.

While Deanna (and Rick, to some extent) had been grooming Maggie for a leadership role, hanging Gregory was a major turning point for her character because until that point she had never killed anyone. His death wasn’t self-defense, rather it was a unilateral, calculated decision that was made with careful consideration. Gregory had been undermining her all along, and he attacked her. She had plenty of reason to want him dead.

Some people on social media believed that I was promulgating the notion the Gregory was a victim in all of this, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Gregory needed to go, most definitely. He was a ticking time bomb who would keep trying to take Maggie down at every opportunity and there was no trusting him. Some people are beyond redemption and he was one of them. Even if he was locked up forever he’d still play the martyr for anyone at the Hilltop who would listen.

Gregory was clearly no victim. But after “Warning Signs” it’s clear that his death was a signal to everyone else who wanted justice, and the floodgates opened.

In The Walking Dead 903 the consequences start to reveal themselves as Maggie and Daryl came across members of the Oceanside community carrying out their own executions. They found Cyndie and Beatrice in the woods with Arat on her knees, and they were preparing to kill her.

Cyndie tells Maggie and Daryl that they were inspired by Maggie’s decision to kill Gregory. The women of Oceanside lost their men and boys to Simon and the Saviors and they want revenge. They were the ones who killed Justin. They killed the other Saviors that had been “missing”.

When Maggie killed Gregory it solved one problem, but it opened a can of worms when the women of Oceanside took it as an opportunity to seek their own revenge. The Saviors didn’t help themselves with their behavior at the camp. No one liked having them around and draining their resources. So the Oceanside women started killing them off and making it look like they left. It’s cold, but brilliant.

It was Maggie who opened the door for their revenge by sending a message (most likely unintentionally at the time) that revenge was acceptable. When Maggie learns of their plans to kill Arat she turns a blind eye. She and Daryl turn and walk away from the scene, and moments later Arat is killed.

Maggie’s decision to turn a blind eye on Cyndie and Beatrice indicates that the tension we saw in the season 8 finale is boiling over, that those who have been wronged by Negan and his people are still out for revenge, and it was Gregory’s hanging that served as the rally cry for vengeance.

By the end of the episode it’s clear that the Oceanside women have been killing the Saviors who killed their loved ones. Maggie and Daryl not only discovered it, but they allowed it when they walked away. This changes things because Maggie isn’t going to Rick with this information.

No, Maggie is headed for Alexandria to have an audience with Negan, and she’s definitely got vengeance on her mind.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.