Will Carl's Dream Become Rick's Downfall on The Walking Dead?

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 9 episode "The Bridge," which premiered Sunday on AMC.

Last week, “A New Beginning” presented The Walking Dead audiences with the most optimistic look at post-apocalyptic life we’ve ever seen on the AMC drama. During the two years that have elapsed since the conclusion of “All Out War,” peace has sustained long enough for the communities to finally make some real progress. Alexandria is rebuilt and exploring solar power, the Hilltop has become a successful farm under Maggie’s able leadership, and even the Sanctuary is attempting to contribute as best it can having benefited from Rick’s amnesty. All in all, things are starting to look a lot like Carl Grimes' vision for the future, and what he begged his father to create. The opening sequence of this week's episode, "The Bridge," echoed the dreamy glimpses that permeated Season 8, with a graying but trimmed Rick Grimes waking up to his family and friends living in peace and harmony. But this is The Walking Dead, and Rick’s swan song, so not only can we expect everything to come crashing down, it might be that it comes crashing down on him.

The end of “A New Beginning” explored the darker side of the new world Rick is building when it ended with Earl and Gregory’s botched assassination attempt, followed by their imprisonment and executions. “The Bridge” made it even clearer that, despite the impressive progress Rick has made, the peace he’s created is still tenuous. Savior Justin keeps up his general douchebaggery, so when he eventually makes a catastrophic mistake redirecting a herd that results in Aaron losing his arm, Rick exiles him. But at this point, Daryl and Carol are even less convinced that everyone can live together peacefully in perpetuity. The mysterious Savior disappearances aren’t helping, either, and considering they’re making up most of the work force on the bridge, but also aren’t armed, tensions are ratcheted up even higher. If Rick can’t even convince his closest friends to get behind him to creating this new world, what hope does it have in the long-term if the dissatisfied, and now terrified, Saviors get their hands on weapons and grow their numbers?

While Aaron manages to look at the tragic loss of his arm as magnanimously as a saint (shoutout to Enid’s killer grace under pressure, by the way), it’s clear that his commitment to Rick’s vision and the future just might be the exception to the rule. That’s certainly what Negan thinks. The Savior leader made a less-than-triumphant return to the series this week in bookend scenes with Rick. In the comics, it’s Carl who periodically visits Negan, but in his absence, the show has Rick come down to gloat about how everything is “thriving” without Negan and his particular brand of leadership. Of course, the Savior can’t resist pointing out that it’s only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down, but what could’ve felt like bravado actually seems like a warning Rick should heed. The question is whether he’s capable of doing so, or if he’s blinded by success bolstered by wishful thinking and a desperate desire to give his son’s death meaning.

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It’s all well and good for Rick to attempt to create a better world out of the ashes, but does he actually know how? While things are markedly better than they were two years ago, Rick could be accused of being another tyrant, albeit a really, really nice one. During last week’s episode, he seemed understanding of Daryl’s concerns at the Sanctuary, but the fact that he had the gall to ask Maggie for yet more charity without offering her anything else in return shows his perhaps dangerous lack of insight into the emotional states of the people he’s leading. He’s kind of dismissive of the rage Maggie still clearly feels toward the man who murdered her husband and made her child fatherless. He’s found the relief of forgiveness, but seems unable to accept that not everyone around him has achieved his state of enlightenment. It’s a more than a little dangerous that he has a such a fairy tale life with Michonne because it’s allowing him to turn a blind eye to the fact that not everyone will accept the way things are.

While speaking with CBR during a recent set visit, Norman Reedus offered insight into the fairly heated exchange that happens between Rick and Daryl at the Sanctuary.

"I think sometimes Rick is so blinded by his vision of getting something done for this reason or for Carl or for whatever reason that he doesn't hear people," he said. "He acts like he does, but he kinda doesn't. Daryl's stepping up into a bigger role and he's never gonna be a guy that builds a podium to stand on top of and talk to his flock. He's just not that dude. I think that Rick putting Daryl in a certain situation [where] he doesn't want to be that person, he's having a hard time getting along. And I think if you don't listen to the people that follow you, and you don't have their attention and they don't think you're listening to them, you kind of lose respect. I think that is Rick's deteriorating podium."

Reedus and Daryl have a serious point when it comes to Rick’s ability to listen. That Rick put Daryl in charge of anything, much less the Sanctuary, goes to show just how out of touch he’s gotten for the sake of honoring his son’s memory. Not only has Daryl never had any interest in leading anything, much less be tied down, he, more than anyone, had reason not to ever want to see the Sanctuary again.

It’s not that Rick’s intentions aren’t good, or even that he’s right about it being better for everyone to bury the hatchet and let it be buried. But by refusing to acknowledge or accept the large numbers of people who can’t do that, he’s endangering himself and what he’s trying to build. It’s possible Rick’s downfall and subsequent exit from the show could come from tensions finally reaching a boiling point. In the end, he could be swallowed up by the fragile civilization he’s trying to build.

Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC, The Walking Dead stars Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Lennie James, Alanna Masterson, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.