The Walking Dead really enjoys faking out (and potentially losing the patience of) its audience.

TWD 6×15 ended with a terrifying cliffhanger when Daryl was seemingly shot point blank in the back by that pesky Dwight character. The scene was another frustrating example of how the show likes to fake out the viewers. Earlier in the season they made us think Glenn was killed and eaten by walkers, only to reveal that he survived several episodes later.

In the case of the penultimate episode of TWD season 6, an even weirder fake out happens with only nine seconds left in the episode: Daryl apparently gets shot, but Dwight cancels out the cliffhanger when he says with confidence, “He’ll be alright.”

First of all, if you really want to keep us hanging until the all-important season finale, why include that line from Dwight? Second, can someone really be alright if you shoot them in such close range? Did he only clip a part of his shoulder? And why didn’t Daryl make a sound (We know he’s tough, but come on.)? Was it not Daryl who was shot? We know it was someone close by, because blood hits the camera.

Perhaps the “he’ll be alright” line was added in after fans reacted negatively to the Glenn fake out. By including that line, viewers are led to believe Daryl isn’t dead. We don’t have to spend the next week thinking about if he survived — we just know that he did, and that’s all that matters.

We’re still curious about how he lived, but only because we want to see how the writers pull Daryl out of this one. Or we’ll learn who really was shot, and then we’ll see just how stupid it was to make us believe it was Daryl who got hit.

This all happened because of a bad move by Daryl. At the top of the episode he peeled out of Alexandria to return to the scene of Denise’s murder to avenge her death. Rosita, Glenn, and Michonne tailed him to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid, but later in the episode a few of the Saviors took Michonne and Glenn hostage. And this situation occurred at the same time that Maggie began to experience an issue with her baby back at Alexandria. Yikes!

Still, the Daryl and Maggie cliffhangers weren’t the best ways to tease the season finale. Featuring Negan in the episode would’ve been a better way to get us all excited for his highly-anticipated arrival. The only hint we got about Negan was when Carl took a careful look at a gun which had the villain’s bat Lucille etched onto it:

Carol hits the road

Though Carol “left” at the end of last week’s episode, episode 15 “East” jumped back in time a bit to show us Carol’s final moments in Alexandria. She spends them speaking to Tobin, the man she began to fall for out of nowhere (A relationship that was so quick, by the way, that we wonder why it was there at all). We even see Carol sneaking out of the house and leaving before sunrise — a sad scene to witness as Johnny Cash’s “It’s All Over” plays.

Not long after Carol leaves, she runs into a small group of Saviors in a truck, who shoot her car and disable it. She immediately jumps into actress mode, calling herself Nancy and claiming she’s unsure of where she’s going (she may not be acting during that part). They assume she’s from Alexandria because they recognize the car, so she starts faking (?) a panic attack to make herself look useless. When they begin to come after her, she pulls a literal trick from out of her sleeve: A gun, which she uses to wound and/or kill everyone swiftly.

While it was another impressive performance by Carol, it’s an unfortunate scene for her because she had to kill more people. More humans who she did not want to kill.

Like her relationship with Tobin, this sudden disinterest in killing was rushed by the show’s writers, and now we’re losing this character for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time. We’re sad that this is where the show is taking Carol, honestly. She’s better than this.

Rick and Morgan arrive some time later at the scene and try to piece together the murder puzzle. They’re not sure whether Carol lived or died, so they start to follow a trail of blood. As they walk, Rick and Morgan realize this Saviors issue is quite big.

For the remainder of the episode the two characters unsuccessfully try to find Carol, and they remain at odds with one another. Morgan wants to give people chances, while Rick doesn’t want to trust anyone. So Morgan decides to give Rick an example of why it’s important to believe in people: He comes clean about the wolf he was hiding at Alexandria, and how that wolf saved Denise, who saved Carl. “Everything is a circle,” Morgan says, as Rick looks onward with a calculating face.

While it sounded like a good story, Morgan’s stretching the truth a bit. As someone on Tumblr puts it:

With a war brewing between Alexandria and the Saviors, Morgan tells Rick to head back to the safe zone to get back to that killing he’s so good at. Morgan vows to stay out on the road until he finds Carol. It’ll be interesting to see just how long he’ll be gone for.

As for Rick, we doubt his chat with Morgan will do anything to change his conscious. He knows that the Saviors, and many others out there in the wild, are a serious threat who can’t be trusted. We don’t disagree with him, but we also think that Morgan is coming from a legitimate place. Perhaps these two will just never see eye to eye.

But hey, at least they can have a laugh about the protein bar.

Is this the last we see of Carol until season 7? With the season 6 finale slated to feature Negan, we have a feeling we may not see Carol for a while.

Elsewhere

– In bed one morning, Rick speaks with too much confidence as Richonne shares Maggie’s fears about Negan and his men. Rick is frustratingly confident about the situation. How can he be so sure about their security when he doesn’t know who or what they’re dealing with? After living in this apocalyptic world for so long, how can he know for sure? His line of thinking in scenes like these are the reason Negan is about to start swinging that bat.

– Glenn and Maggie. Nude. In the shower. With carefully placed fog covering their private areas, of course, but it’s nice to see some intimacy between these two. While things start nicely for these two at the top of the episode, things change dramatically at the end of the hour: Maggie gets a haircut and begins experiencing some apparent trouble with her baby as Glenn is being held hostage in the woods. If only Denise were alive to help!

The Walking Dead season 6 finale airs Sunday, April 3 on AMC.