The Walking Dead Villains: Who’s The Worst? Part 10C

1) The Reapers

The extension to season ten of The Walking Dead focused on a character that hadn’t gotten an episode dedicated to her in over a whole season (And, in real-time, close to three years), Maggie Rhee.

We learned a lot about what Maggie had done during her absence from northern Virginia, including her efforts, along with Georgie, to try to aid other groups in and around the Appalachians, her relocating herself and Hershel to a family home on the coast, meeting her new group, and her run-ins with a group called The Reapers.

We don’t know much about them because Maggie doesn’t know much about them, beyond the fact that they’re very hostile, very brutal, and very persistent. This became evident when Maggie brought Daryl and Kelly to meet the rest of her new group, only to discover that their temporary base had been burned to the ground with several of the said group still inside. Maggie went on to say that the Reapers had been pursuing her and her friends for quite a while.  The pursuit was certainly confirmed when several of the survivors of the fire, after reuniting with Maggie and her bodyguards, were gunned down by a sniper hiding somewhere in the woods.

This sniper would try to hunt down Maggie and Daryl as they searched for Hershel, with the pair finally catching the ruthless killer. As Maggie attempted to get information from the sniper as to why he and his group were chasing her, he simply said “Pope marked you” before committing suicide with a grenade strapped to his body.

What this encounter tells us about the Reapers is as follows:

1. They are very persistent once they’ve “marked” someone. They chased Maggie and her group across at least a couple of states before catching up with them in Virginia. Even though they likely could have come across other people to hunt, they stuck with Maggie, dogging her group all the way to Alexandria, with the sniper specifically chasing her through the woods before finally being caught. When they “mark” someone, they seem to stick to them until they’re destroyed.
2. They are very brutal. At least three members of Maggie’s group were burnt to death, obviously an awful way to go. As for the other three, all of them were gunned down by the sniper as they tried to tell Maggie what happened. This was almost as if the sniper enjoyed killing them at points where they thought they were relatively safe.
3. They’re very skilled. Think about it: If a sniper as skilled as the one we saw is just an underling of the Reapers, someone who takes orders, chances are the ones further up the food chain are even better than he was! Also, I doubt that they only recently started hunting people down, which, if I’m right, means they’ve been roaming around hunting for at least a couple of years. These aren’t some fly-by-night hacks pretending to be Seal Team 6; these guys are serious killers, likely having extensive training in hunting, sniping, and stealth, making them potentially very dangerous customers.
4. They seem to get a kick out of the hunt. I mean, why pursue Maggie and her group, specifically? They don’t want anything from them. So far as we can tell, they have no grudge against them. So, why continue to chase Maggie’s group? The only answer I can think of: The thrill of the hunt. I think they’re chasing Maggie’s people because it’s fun for them. It’s a game to see how well they can hunt people because maybe walkers and animals provide no challenge anymore, and it’s not like there’s anyone around to stop them, is there?

I don’t know if we’ve seen the last of the Reapers, but what we do know about them paints a scary picture of a group of brutal, highly skilled, very persistent people. Who, in an amoral world, have taken to hunting people. They may not be hunting them for the same reasons, I suspect but rest assured, they are hunting Maggie’s people. If the one Reaper we saw is any indication of his cohorts’ skill level, Alexandria will be in big trouble.