This week’s The Walking Dead season 9 episode packs a lot of different stories into one hour.

Justin’s fate is revealed before the credits role as his body reanimates and he joins a small group of walkers. There is an ominous message saying “Final Warning” on a building behind the walkers, which is surely a metaphor for the continued drama in this episode.

Richonne and Judith goodness

Rick and Michonne are reunited after being separated in the last episode. While she lounges in bed, Rick heads out to give us another glimpse of Alexandria. A lot of residents seem to be MIA again, but it could be early in the morning.

I love how he gave Michonne a light, affectionate kiss on her arm and peeked in on Judith before leaving the house. It’s probably similar to his pre-apocaylpse morning routine except his current lady isn’t a terrible person. Yes, everyone still hates you Lori.

Rick also took a moment of pause as he stopped in front of the piece of wood with Carl and Judith’s hand-prints, which is now hung on his wall. It’s a nice way to honor Carl’s memory and, based on Judith’s portrait of Carl in the first episode, it seems like Richonne is making sure Judith remembers her big brother.

Alexandria is looking really good with rebuilt townhouses and a gorgeous garden. Rick strolls around until he runs into a single ripe red tomato. He picks the tomato and puts it at Carl’s grave as he cries.

It’s sort of a callback to the dream sequence where Rick was an old man and everyone was gardening together in harmony. Judith runs into the garden and guess who is picking ripe red tomatoes? NEGAN. I don’t like it.

Rick admittedly didn’t get much onscreen time to process losing Carl in season 8 but this scene is a reminder that he is still trying to cope with his son’s loss while building a new world. There’s a lot of pressure and uncertainty on Rick’s shoulders and those emotions are surely heightened by grief.

Rick returns to his bedroom to find Michonne up and working on her charter. She stops to tell him that Judith has a nasty cough and she’s going to take her to the doctor (aka Siddiq) to have her checked out.

Rick decides to take a day off and let Maggie hold down the fort so he can be there for his family. It is such a typical parenting moment and a testament to how relatively normal Judith’s childhood is despite being in this new society.

Seeing Michonne continue to take on a motherly role with Judith after Carl’s death is enough to bring a tear any Richonne lover’s eyes. But, the tears won’t last long because Rick says the only way Judith will be down for a doctor’s visit is to plan a full-on family-fun day!

Whooo hoooo! This entire scene and the dynamic of the Grimes family feels so refreshing in the midst of the ongoing strife outside of Alexandria’s walls.

But, the best part about this scene was Rick once again declaring his love for Michonne.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done, for everything you’re doing, for you.”

He seals his words with a kiss and tells her to put her documents away so they can build for the future in another way. Does this mean that a Richonne baby is on the way?

It would make a ton of fans happy, but it’s also sad because we feel like Rick may meet a terrible demise. I am digging the Richonne love this season, but we deserved so much of this a long time ago.

The Grimes family fun day is the purest thing in the history of this show. Rick and Judith have a crawling race on the floor with their boots on.

Michonne finds Judith hiding in a bush. And, Michonne gives Judith a light, playful lesson on how to eventually wield a katana by engaging in a spirited stick fight.

It is so precious but also sad because this little family is going to be split apart in some way. Sigh. Of course, the fun comes to an end when Scott delivers bad news about Justin’s death.

Fights and suspicions rise

Everyone at the camp knows and now the remaining Saviors are on edge because they think they are next.

The continued issues between the Hilltop and Sanctuary are still prevalent when Maggie catches a few Saviors looking for Justin instead of working on the bridge. I seriously cannot stand any of these people, especially Jed.

He strolls up and takes a tomato from Maggie’s cart and starts taunting her while eating the produce. Maggie is trying to take Michonne’s advice and give this situation a chance but she’s pretty irritated by it all.

Meanwhile, the work camp is in a complete disarray. Some of the Saviors start shoving and hitting other people. Others place the blame for Justin’s death on Anne and then Daryl.

And, Carol is about that action when she draws her gun to protect Daryl. Thankfully, Rick rides in on a horse to save the day and calm everyone’s nerves.

He gets into cop mode and starts questioning Father Gabriel about Anne’s whereabouts. The pair obviously haven’t made their romance yet, but it is no secret that they are close friends so it makes sense for Rick to talk to Gabriel.

Rick says he trusts Father Gabriel to keep it real and of course Gabriel lies and says they were together all night long. Oh Gabriel. You are finally in the inner circle and about to lose your spot messing around with a documented liar.

Rick, Maggie, and Ayden come together to see what they should do about the situation. This meeting reminds me of my confusion about the latter’s role.

Ayden seems harmless enough despite being an ex-Savior, but I am not sure if he is supposed to be Maggie’s sidekick of some sort of liaison between the Sanctuary and other communities.

Jesus is definitely her right-hand man and she doesn’t seem to have any romantic feelings for him, yet he can just stroll up into leadership conversations. But I digress.

Maggie keeps quiet when Rick says they need to protect the Sanctuary people because she probably doesn’t feel like arguing today. Good job Maggie.

Rick then turns his sights on Daryl as a possible suspect because Justin’s puncture wound looks like it was from an arrow. As I previously said, Daryl would be the number one suspect after he clocked him with a pan last episode.

Daryl tells Rick that he would have killed Justin in plain sight like a G and that something like this was bound to happen. He continues to have a point when he asks Rick why these people deserve to have a future when Abraham, Glenn, and Sasha don’t get that chance.

It was nice to hear Sasha’s name mentioned as a major loss because she did play a key role in this group. Rick replies that he thought about that but says killing each other when the world belongs to the dead doesn’t make sense anymore.

I can also see Rick’s point here about not going around and killing people indiscriminately because it sets up a cycle of violence. Again, a lot of this confusion about how to handle bad behavior can be solved with Michonne’s charter that should have happened months ago.

In the end, Rick asks Daryl to please try to see it his way and reminds him that he was the same guy to left Merle to die in Atlanta.

A later patrol mission goes off the rails when a Sanctuary group doesn’t cover their post. This seems to be an ongoing trend with these people.

But, this time makes more sense because Arat, who was Negan’s ride or die chick, has truly gone missing so they try to look for her. What I don’t understand about this rescue mission is why they split up and continued their search after dark.

It seems not smart to go wandering around when there are walker herds and potentially dangerous people lurking in the shadows. But, they did feel like it was a time sensitive issue.

Rick teams up with Carol and they chat about ongoing issues. He says he thinks about killing Negan each day but remembers all the people they lost and says he needs to honor life by building it instead of killing.

Rick then takes on a Morgan-like stance and says every life counts for something in this world. I understand his sentiment about wanting to build and get away from the constant killing and fighting, but I am not sure what this has to do with Negan.

He’s a complete psychopath who murdered your friends and is still threatening you from behind bars. What is he contributing right now besides giving rogue Saviors hope and Rick a major headache?

And, Negan’s mini me followers are just as bad. Jed ambushes Carol and holds her hostage in front of Rick to get weapons so they can leave the group. This is what most Sanctuary people do – threaten violence and steal from others.

Carol stabs him in the shoulder and they take him back to camp to be patched up. This signifies that Carol is #TeamRick in terms of figuring out a way to build this new world. It’s a interesting stance from her, especially since she is extremely close to Daryl.

Rogue missions arise

Speaking of Daryl, he teamed up and solved the Savior killing mystery with Maggie when they found Arat being held hostage by Cyndie. I did NOT see that plot twist coming at all.

It turns out Cyndie and two other Oceanside women were preparing to kill her because she coldly murdered Cyndie’s pre-teen brother. It’s a very intense and emotional scene as Cyndie declares that they deserve it because they stole her original home.

It’s understandable why Cyndie would be filled with so much rage. Arat was extremely loyal to Negan and seemed to take pleasure in doing malicious things. She killed Olivia, cut Rosita across the face, and even gunned down Saviors who tried to rise up against Negan.

Can someone literally named A RAT really be trusted, especially when her leader is still alive?

Cyndie says the Oceanside went along with Rick at first until she witnessed Gregory’s hanging and decided that there was another way. Maggie is understandably horrified that her actions were the cause of this, but her and Daryl simply walk away and allow Arat to be executed by Cyndie.

The end of this scene is so cold because Arat was literally begging for her life and saying that she had changed, which brings to mind the conversation that Maggie and Michonne had about redemption. Was someone like Arat truly redeemed or a future threat? I guess it doesn’t matter now.

It’s an icky decision by Maggie and Daryl, but I guess they feel like someone should get the justice that they want since Negan is still alive. This scene was so well acted, but I am not sure if it fundamentally makes sense. If anything, it means Cyndie is a moron.

The situation with Gregory was something completely different because he has been trying to kill Maggie for a while. As far as we have seen, Arat nor Justin were threatening to Cyndie and her crew in any way post-war.

I am not sure how she saw this execution and thought it was a green light to go on a revenge mission against former Saviors. She is technically the leader of the Oceanside collective so she probably felt like it was cool to make this decision.

But, Maggie made the reasoning behind her choice widely known and didn’t sneak off in the woods to do some covert execution. Cyndie was wrong and it will be interesting to see how she plays into this brewing civil war.

Maggie and Daryl ended their time saying that Rick’s way wasn’t working and they were going to Alexandria to see Negan. Oh boy…things are about to get infinitely messier.

Secret rogue missions usually end up with someone dying (like Sasha) so they need to chill before they do something dumb like letting Negan escape.

Jadis is still a terrible human

The most nonsense part of this episode was Jadis/Anne and Father Gabriel…again. This relationship is weird and she proved that she is still the worst.

After Gabriel talked to Rick, he confronted Anne about where she was and said he lied to protect her place in the group. She’s upset that she is a suspect yet she doesn’t answer Gabriel’s questions about where she went and what she may know.

She doesn’t answer his question and storms off. Later that night, Anne is seen at her old stomping grounds with a flashlight. She finds a walkie and begins to talk to the man who is responsible for that elusive helicopter.

They have a pretty vague conversation where he asks her if she has a A or a B. She says she had neither and she paid her share to him, but he asks her for a “A” by tomorrow.

This pretty much indicates that she has traded some people to this person in exchange for some unknown prize.

The letter A has played a role in The Walking Dead for several season and perhaps we will finally understand all the connections. At Terminus, Rick and his group were held in a train car with the letter A spray-painted on the side.

Gareth put the letter A on the side of Gabriel’s church. When the group attended their first Alexandria party, Rick’s hand was stamped with the letter A.

Carol later saw the letter A on a banister when she was smoking a cigarette on a porch. Daryl wore the letter A on shirt when he was held captive by the Saviors. And, Jadis/Anne put the letter A on a container where Rick was being held hostage.

What the heck does this mean? Is this foreshadowing that Rick is the “A” that Jadis has to turn over to someone in exchange for freedom? What does “B” mean? Has the helicopter group played a background role in the show without us realizing it?

Nothing is impossible on a show about the living dead but this whole thing seems like it is going to be stupid.

Of course, Father Gabriel followed her, which makes sense because she was being super secretive, and asked her what was going on. She tells the truth about not being involved with Justin’s death and trading people in the past for supplies but she still doesn’t really answer his questions.

Anne also invites him to come with her to run away toward a better life, but she was still extremely vague about where they would go. She tells him to trust her and help her with one small part of the deal, but Gabriel does not want to lie to Rick.

Anne ends up knocking him out cold and said she thought he was a “B.” What are you talking about girl?

This is exactly why so much of the fandom dislikes Jadis/Anne. She insists on wanting people to trust her, yet she is not being forthcoming about her actions and knowledge.

She knows about this helicopter business yet she hasn’t said a single word. What is the idyllic place and why can’t she share it with the community?

If the helicopter person is a potential threat, then why is she keeping quiet? Anne is clearly a selfish, manipulative liar who only used poor Father Gabriel in hopes that she could coax him into completing some vague mission.

He was the only person who actually stood up for her when everyone was giving her the side eye and now she’s probably going to harm him or sell him to this group. I have no idea where this is going, but it is not looking good for Gabriel at this moment.

This episode went in a ton of different directions and had some questionable actions by too many people. Thankfully, Richonne and Judith action broke up some of the intensity of the other scenes.

There’s a lot at play in terms of the Maggie/Daryl alliance, Cyndie’s rouge behavior, and Jadis possibly killing Father Gabriel so I am curious about how it will play out in next week’s episode. Since The Walking Dead began, Rick has just wanted safety and security and he can’t catch a break.

I’ll give “Warning Signs” three stars for Rick, Judith, and Michonne.