Part of why the Alexandria storyline has succeeded on "The Walking Dead" is because the town's citizens are, for the most part, good people. There's no sense of crazed totalitarianism as with Woodbury, nor has the survivalism reached the brutality of a place like Terminus. It's refreshing to see Rick and company team up with a community who, by and large, actually want to make their partnership work. Even though I expect Rick's cold logic to be an increasingly sore point of contention -- Heath looked particularly disturbed when he stripped a bite victim of his valuables without even acknowledging his death -- it's still very clear that he wants the same thing as everyone else: a return to normalcy.

Unfortunately, the  wholesomeness of Alexandria comes with an enormous lack of survival skills from many of its citizens, which proves to be equally as harmful as a cold-blooded villain like The Governor or Gareth. A great deal of the Alexandrians have a hard time thinking on their feet, whether it's Annie twisting her ankle as the walker herd slogs after her in the woods or Nicholas panicking when he has to recalibrate a diversion plan later in the episode. Simply put, a lot of things go wrong in "Thank You," and every last one of them can be attributed to a local of Alexandria, good-hearted as they are.

Let's break it down, shall we? The reason the walker herd started heading back to Alexandria in the first place was because of the prolonged truck horn. Yes, the Wolves sent the truck, but Spencer could have stopped the horn a lot sooner if he'd had the balls to immediately remove the walker from the steering wheel after the crash. Then tonight, Annie twists her ankle, Sturgess accidentally shoots Scott in the leg then flees in terror, and David gets bitten in the back, all of which slows down their group after Rick sends them back to Alexandria while he proceeds with his plan. Their safe return home essentially falls on Michonne, Glenn, Heath, and Nicholas, whose crippling bouts of remorse and shell shock are putting his reliability in question. Things go about as bad as you'd expect when, due to his indecision and the slow pace of the others, the walker herd catches up with them in a small town where they've stopped to recoup. Annie and David both bite the dust when they fall behind, and Nicholas isn't able to take action when he discovers the feed store he and Glenn are leading the walkers to has already been torched.

At this point, all of the Alexandrians in Glenn and Michonne's group -- aside from Nicholas and Heath -- feel unnecessary, as if they're being showcased just so they can die. Look at David, for instance. After he gets bitten, we get some clunky exposition about how he still wants to help the team so he can get back to Alexandria and say goodbye to his wife. If that weren't heavy-handed enough, he then goes on to explain how he was in a dark place after the apocalypse and that she brought him back to the light. It's supposed to make us feel bad for him when he gets eaten alive as the group tries to scale a gate, but because he hasn't been featured that much on the show and we only get his life story 30 minutes before, he winds up being just another straw man. It would have been better if we hadn't heard any of his background at all. The whole thing reeks of the show runners and writer Angela Kang trying way too hard.

At least Nicholas' death ends up being more effective, if only because the show has taken so much time to develop not just his positive traits, but his negative ones, too. Even with Glenn's bravery training, he hasn't been able to fully break free of his cowardly past, which makes his suicide when he's cornered atop a dumpster all the sadder. But saddest of all (outside of the heartfelt "Thank you" for his second lease on life)? He takes Glenn down with him, or at least it sure seems that way. It's not on purpose -- Glenn's grasping his shoulders to try and keep him from pulling the trigger -- but that doesn't soften the sting when both men tumble into the seemingly bottomless pit of walkers below them.

I had heard rumors of Glenn's death supposedly happening tonight, but was still surprised at how trivial it felt. Did I expect (major comic book spoilers follow in this sentence) Negan to randomly walk off Robert Kirkman's pages and bash his head in with a barbed-wire baseball bat? Of course not. But I also didn't expect him to be dragged down with little fanfare by the very man whose soul he's saved over the past few months, a man who once tried to murder him no less.

At this point, you're probably yelling at the computer screen about the many (fairly credible) theories floating around online proposing that Glenn isn't dead. What if the intestines being feasted upon were actually those of Nicholas, who had toppled on top of Glenn and provided him with a shield? That would give him time to escape, possibly by rolling under the dumpster. But either way feels like a lose-lose situation. If Glenn's alive, then tonight's ending becomes a copout put in place solely to trick viewers. But if he's dead, it seems like a pointless way for one of the show's best and most likable characters to go out. He didn't die saving anyone. He didn't get to say goodbye to Maggie. He didn't even tell anyone where he was.

And yet maybe that hopelessness is the point. If Glenn's truly gone, maybe we're supposed to view it as the ultimate proof that Alexandria can't work, that the lack of courage from many of its citizens will do in even the strongest members of Rick's company. Maybe they'd be better off finding someplace else. Granted, Rick's in a tight spot himself at the end of the episode, with a small group of Wolves having attacked his RV and the vehicle not starting as the walkers get closer. But I suspect he'll get out of that situation, just as he's gotten out of so many similar ones in the past. With how things are going, he'd be wiser to worry about the Alexandrians. Walkers and Wolves aren't exactly new threats to Rick. But the ineptitude of an entire community? That's something he hasn't had to deal with before.