WARNING: The following article includes spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 5, "What Is Always Is," which aired Sunday on AMC.
Aaron previously said on The Walking Dead that he doesn't want to a nice guy anymore and was a jerk to Negan, yet the latest episode shows the old Aaron isn't completely gone. When we first see him in "What Is Always Is," Aaron is off walking on his own practicing his skills with a sword. He hears a walker approaching. Before he can reach it, though, Gamma comes along and takes it out. Aaron hides behind a tree and watches her as she guts the zombie.
Back at the Whisperers’ camp with Gamma, we learn that Alpha has had her damming up the river with walkers. Alpha is going after the joint communities with small nicks, and one whisperer’s had it. He protests that they could send their walker army and take them all out at once. Alpha hears him out and then puts his strategy to a vote. Not surprisingly, things don’t go in the insolent whisperer’s favor. Alpha demonstrates the effectiveness of her strategy by nicking the whisperer in a few key places -- before handing a knife to Beta to finish him off.
Alpha gives the new walker to Gamma to use to finish damming the river. Gamma walks him there and then brings the walker down. She stabs him repeatedly, all the while flashing back to everything she’s been through with the Whisperers. She may be good at hiding it, but clearly she’s not okay. As she takes out her frustration on the walker, the knife slips and Gamma cuts herself.
Aaron sees what happens. He approaches from the opposite side of the river and throws her some gauze. Aaron introduces himself and tries to talk to Gamma. He starts to ask her where she’s from, but she grabs the gauze and runs away without a word.
Gamma heads back to camp and admits to Alpha that she cut herself and received her bandages from Aaron. Alpha takes off Gamma’s skin mask. She observes that Aaron might be useful and suggests that Gamma cultivate the relationship. Uh oh. Aaron's his small act of kindness to Gamma could prove to have some unintended consequences both for him and the joint communities.
The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Cooper Andrews, Avi Nash, and Samantha Morton. It airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.