The Worst Decisions In The Walking Dead, Part II

Season Nine: Maggie plans to kill Negan.

I’ll give Maggie credit: She’s worked hard to avoid getting on this list. For the previous seven seasons, I can’t even really think of a single incident where a decision she made ended up so bad that would warrant even consideration for this list (I won’t count going to Terminus in season five against her, because everyone made that mistake), but, when she messed up, she messed up bad.

In the fourth episode of season nine, “The Obliged”, as the communities’ attempts to literally build a bridge between them were seeming to unravel, Rick learned that Maggie was planning to kill Negan as revenge for Glenn’s death. Rick, knowing that, with tensions between the former Saviors and the rest of the communities being a powder keg already, he couldn’t let Maggie murder Negan, and tried to stop her. As Daryl drives him back to Alexandria, he intentionally takes Rick the wrong way, ensuring Rick can’t get to Alexandria in time to talk Maggie out of killing Negan. This would be bad enough, but, by forcing Rick to go back to Alexandria, he couldn’t stop the ex-Saviors from trying wage war on the women of Oceanside at the bridge construction site, which, ultimately, drew a massive herd of walkers, forcing Rick to have to lead it to the bridge (Getting badly injured in the process), and blow up the bridge, sacrificing himself to save the communities.

First, let me get this out of the way: I understand why Maggie wanted to kill Negan. He killed her husband, it makes sense. Also, I know Maggie can’t be blamed for the coincidence of the walker herd being in the area, and being drawn by the firefight between the ex-Savior and everyone else at the construction site.

However, I can blame Maggie for taking Rick away from the site in the first place, and therefore, not being there to try to calm down Jed and the other ex-Saviors.

The reason Maggie takes the cake this season is because of just how disastrous her decision wound up being, and just how big the reverberations would be. Her decision to try to kill Negan caused relations between the communities to break down, which led to trade breaking down. The breakdown in trade is what, eventually, doomed The Kingdom, and allowed the massacre the Whisperers committed after the festival to happen, because, being so out of contact with one another ensured that people from the communities couldn’t recognize each other’s members, a weakness Alpha exploited. Worst of all, though: It cost the communities Rick.

Rick would not have gone missing had Maggie not chosen to try to kill him. He would have remained in Alexandria, and ensured that ties between the five communities carried on. Maybe, with Rick there, they all would have handled the Whisperers better, and not lost so much in the way of their homes or their friends.

If you want further proof, look no further than Maggie herself, who seemed to exile herself after Rick’s “death”. If that isn’t evidence that she thought her decision was a terrible one, nothing I can say could convince you.