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| Daryl wasn't the dumb ass. |
Wow, that was a shocker of an episode. (If you haven't watched the season 7 Walking Dead premiere please stop reading as there's spoilers ahead.)
When Glenn got his comic book death, it was Daryl who some folk blamed after he punched Negan for killing Abraham. The reasoning I guess, is that if he hadn't done that Glenn would have still been alive.
But, is fan favourite Daryl really the dumb ass here?
No. To me, its Rick Grimes. The leader the group would follow anywhere who made the biggest mistake of all - not knowing his enemy.
I might have been in the majority here, but I'm glad Daryl landed a punch on the most evil character in The Walking Dead so far. And that's saying a lot when you remember how the cannibal Terminus lot saw other survivors (including children) as food.
Why blame Rick?
When they all had the meeting in the church to discuss taking on Negan's Saviors (Season 6 episode 12 "Not tomorrow yet"), only Morgan suggested talking to them first, which might not have been such a bad idea. They would have been able to see the lay of the land. Find out just how big an army he had.
Heck, they might actually have found out what this big, bad Negan looked like.
Even Rick admitted he knew how dangerous the Saviours were in the church meeting - "These saviors they almost killed Daryl, Sasha and Abraham on the road. Now sooner or later they would have found us, just like those wolves did, just like Jesus did. They would have killed someone or some of us and they would try to own us and we would try to stop them."
Then he emphasised that the decision to go after Negan and the saviors "needs to be a group decision."
So, who stepped up and said, "Hey, going in without knowing much is stupid, Rick"?
What about soldier Abraham? Where was he with his words of advice?
Why no reconnaissance? Soldiers don't blunder in, they have battle plans. Where was Abraham's?
Sasha was a firefighter in her old life. That's a job that takes a tremendous amount of discipline and planning. Yet she forgot everything when it came to the chat in the church.
Michonne is a planner. Rick would have listened to her.
Same goes for Daryl.
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| Morgan was the only one who spoke up about Negan plan. |
Only Morgan stepped up and said his piece. His advice about talking to the saviors first was a bad idea. Maybe then they'd have learnt that taking on Negan and his mob wasn't something they could do alone.
Rick and all the others ignored Morgan. They went in blindly, even taking pregnant Maggie along and murdered Negan's men in their compound whilst they slept.
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| Rick killed him thinking he was Negan. |
Heck, Rick even executed a man they thought was Negan without checking out who he was first.
For the first time we started to think, hey, maybe Rick and his group of survivors are the bad guys.
Ultimately though, it was Rick being a dumbass - as Glenn famously called him in season one when he saved them from encroaching walkers - that ultimately led to the death of two of the show's most iconic characters.
He was the leader without a proper plan. He didn't even know who Negan was.
He certainly does now.
Footnote for Rick - you get the group together and people alive, but you can't always succeed. Remember this -
It's not the getting knocked down, it's the getting back up again.
The world needs Rick Grimes.
