SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for tonight's episode of The Walking Dead, "Still Gotta Mean Something," which has not yet aired on the west coast as of publication.
Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Still Gotta Mean Something,” ended with a freshly-released-back-into-the wild Negan picking up an unseen character from off the side of the road, after giving them a good ribbing about their worse-for-the-wear appearance in the manner that only the baseball bat-welding tyrant can deliver.
While we do not see who this roadside hitchhiker is as Negan beckons them to the safe (?) confines of his sedan, the list of who this mystery passenger might be is rather short. After Henry released the prisoners at the Hilltop Community, the majority of the interned Saviors either made a break for it or stayed behind in an act of pledging allegiance to Maggie and her cause. Most of the Saviors who made it beyond the walls of Hilltop were eventually found by Rick and Morgan (or rather, the escaped Saviors found them) and were swiftly dispatched with the exception of Jared, who really got a raw deal even for someone so cartoonishly malevolent.
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The bulk of the other characters who were not involved in the prison break at Hilltop are mostly accounted for, and those who aren’t probably would not be so inclined to hop in the car with Negan without reservation. This reduction of possible passenger suspects leaves one name that seems to make the most sense: Gregory.
Who doesn’t hate Gregory? Well, Negan doesn’t. Sure he thinks Gregory is a milquetoast turncoat who probably does not need to be in a position of power and for all intents and purposes would better serve him as a walker on a border fence… which he is, but Negan knows he needs allies now more than ever. His ranks have been decimated and any bargaining chip or source of information he can scrounge up would be undeniably valuable. The man is at war, and war makes for strange bedfellows.
Gregory has nothing to lose these days. His community has been taken over, and whatever scrap of pride he held was stripped away long ago. Taking a chance on Negan doesn’t seem to be incredibly farfetched. Gregory has been imprisoned by the enemy for quite some time now, and surely knows the inner workings of the Hilltop. Now that the Alexandria Safe Zone has fallen, the Hilltop would be the most obvious stronghold for Negan to attack. Taking Maggie and her people out would make the ground shrink to the point of non-existence beneath the feet of our heroes. If Gregory holds the key to exploit the Hilltop’s weakness, Negan would be crazier than he already is to let it slip by.
Gregory is also a man whose loyalty can be easily bought. He is a man ruled by fear with the hopes to one day gain control of some small piece of the ruined world around him, no matter the cost. Gregory is not a man of action, but a man of opportunity. He’s a rat running wild in a pen of wolves. Whoever doesn’t eat him alive, he’ll stick by.
Now, whoever climbed into Negan’s car might not be Gregory. For all we know it could be another Savior who someone got out alive after Rick and Morgan’s assault, though that seems unlikely. Say what you will about Rick and his staff-swinging bro, those dudes are pretty thorough in the murder department. But maybe, just maybe, it’s a character who comes out of left field. Every now and then The Walking Dead will shock us. And seeing as how their adherence to source material if fluid at best, anything could happen, which makes things exciting. But if we were the betting kind, we’d put all our chips on Gregory.