‘The Walking Dead’ recap: Everybody dies

Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead season 6, episode 1 "East." To read our recap of episode 14, click here.

“You’ll be alright.”

That’s what we hear Dwight say after he shoots Daryl. It’s not clear who he’s talking to, or why he’s saying it, as it’s after the screen goes black, but he might as well have been saying it to all of us. You’ll be alright, because even though you think it can’t, The Walking Dead can go on without its favorite son.

Let’s get this over with right away -- after the Great Glenn’s Not Dead Fiasco of 2015, there is bound to be speculation -- and say that, given the information in this episode, Daryl is gravely injured and possiblydead. We all just saw it. We saw someone shoot him in what looked like his chest or neck from point-blank range. We saw the blood spatter. It hit the camera lens. We heard the sound of the body drop. Minus some insane Glenn-like shenanigans (which we are not ruling out entirely), Daryl Dixon could be very much gone.

Now you might be saying, he’s only shot, we’re not sure he’s dead, maybe he can recover. I’ll remind you that the show very pointedly killed off its doctor last week. I’ll remind you that Dwight is not likely to want to get Daryl medical attention. I’ll remind you that they are far from Alexandria, and Glenn, Michonne and Rosita are captive and Rick and the rest don’t know where they are. But, this show has showed a marked disregard for actual stakes when it comes to their truly main characters.

This, by the way, is the biggest problem with the Glenn guessing game last fall. It wasn’t that the show strung us along about Glenn specifically, it was that allowing him to survive the impossible makes us believe anyone can survive the impossible. And we will continue to do so. Even as I saw the blood hit the camera lens, I was unwilling to believe the show had really done this. I watched it over and over again just to make sure I saw what I saw. And yet, even as I try to convince you that he might be dead or die soon, a small part of me is not convinced the show would ever really do this.

That said, if Daryl ends up being alive, it will actual be kind of sad for the show, since it will be impossible to believe any character on this show ever even could die in the future. So as much as we love him, and as much as we wish the show hadn’t taken away one of its strongest characters, he needs to be truly dead. Or someone needs to die at the hands of Negan and the Saviors. Because The Walking Dead will lose so much more if people keep being magically alive.

All by myself

Carol’s plan to leave in order to prevent herself from adding to her long list of kills isn’t working out so well thus far. In what appears to be just hours after she left, she comes across some Saviors on the road that she has to dispense with. In true Carol fashion, the deed is done quickly and efficiently (although not as thoroughly as it might have been in the past, she did miss one who may become a problem later). Once more the rosary she’s been bumming around with has come to good use, as well as her ability to come off as a meek and fearful victim.

But as great a fighter as she is, her sojourn did not solve her problem of killing too much. Her conscience is still nagging her, and not having someone to fight for didn’t stop the death. Because she at the very least always has herself to fight for.  But all that may be moot, anyway, considering the final seconds of this episode. We doubt much could keep Carol and her knives away from the man who attacked Daryl.

Time is a flat circle

Morgan has been espousing a very different philosophy and morality from the rest of our survivors for awhile, and it’s surprising that it took this long for him and Rick to truly hash it out. But they did, and with significantly less violence than when Carol and Morgan had the same conversation. Morgan fesses up to keeping the Wolf alive, but argues that it all happened for a reason (since he later saved Denise who later saved Carl). Rick is incredulous, but a little more moved by Morgan than we would have guessed. After the pair encounters what seems like yet another Savior (really charismatic leader, this Negan guy, huh?) on their hunt for Carol, Morgan convinces Rick to just leave. To stop killing (at least in that moment, not forever). To just wait and let him do the dirty work and find Carol. To go home to the people he loves.

Too bad now that Rick finally has someone to come home to, she’s not there.

Choices we make

What is the point, I ask you, of living in the most secure location in the post-apocalypse, if you’re just going to up and leave all the time? We now have two deaths in as many episodes that could have easily, easily been prevented by the respective people simply not wandering past the gate. Did Denise need to go check out that apothecary? No, someone else could have or they could have lived without the medical supplies. Did Daryl need to go on an avenging rampage after her? No, he really, really didn’t. Especially not when his friends and family begged him not to.

But he did. And Glenn and Michonne and Rosita went after him. And he had one chance to change his mind and go back and prevent all of this. But still, he made the rash, emotional decision to go and try to fix what he feels was his grave mistake. And then Glenn and Michonne were captured after following him into what are clearly Savior-controlled woods. And then even before he and Rosita were able to stage a rescue attempt (like Abraham last week), Dwight had a gun to his head. And then? We're not totally sure. But whatever it truly was, it wasn't good for Daryl.

Like I said above, we don’t know everything, and many signs point to Daryl’s death. It would be a shame for us, as he is one of the most interesting and fully-drawn characters the show has ever offered. It’s a shame for the show, as it would certainly feel the lack of Norman Reedus’ presence in every episode after this. But if Daryl is truly dead or dies soon, we know one thing for sure: The war with the Saviors is only just beginning.

Super great time for Maggie to be screaming in pain and clutching her stomach, right? That's definitely a good thing?

Here's to hoping the season finale next week offers up some answers.