Spoiler Warning: Stay away if you are not up-to-date with everything that happened in "The Walking Dead" Season 8 Episode 11: "Dead Or Alive or."
"The Walking Dead's" latest installment cryptically named "Dead or Alive or" ended with Negan presenting the Saviors with the new war tactics they'll be using in the upcoming battle against Rick and company. The method is pretty gruesome, as it involves gunking up their weapons with walkers' guts. Negan believes that by doing so, the Saviors would just have to scratch the enemy with tainted weapons and they would immediately become infected with walkers' blood.
However, the survivors got in touch with walkers' blood by covering themselves with guts many times before, and nothing happened. So, how is this going to work this time? Is there some kind of trick involved, or is it "The Walking Dead's" biggest continuity error to date? Well, read on and you will find out.
The 'Dead or Alive or' episode title mystery solved
In "The Walking Dead" comics, the Saviors use bacteria from walkers' mouths, which is practically the same as the bacteria present in the guts as well. Also, in the comics, Negan came up with this idea all by himself, while in the show he was "inspired" by what Eugene said. To recall, back in the bullet factory, a terrified Eugene suggested to Negan that they should, in the absence of bullets, launch zombie parts and the big piles of guts over the Hilltop's defenses with catapults.
That, as well as the fact that Father Gabriel got sick from covering himself with guts, gave Negan an idea of what he should do next.
Then, in true Negan fashion, he put on a big show in front of the Saviors. He had three walkers lined up and chained up to the fence. Negan then hit the walker in the face with Lucille, covering the bat with the tainted blood.
"You see how Lucille is getting to know our beautiful, cold friend here," Negan asked his minions. "No more smashing and bashing with this. With this, it could just be a touch or a big, wet kiss," he adds. "We want people to join the club. The Hilltop is going to learn to toe the line one way or another. Dead or Alive. Or some kind of s*** in between," Negan concludes, and just like that the episode title mystery was solved.
The idea is simple: Put some zombie blood on a weapon: a knife, a bat, or an arrow for that matter, and the enemy is infected. And the important part of the scene was Dwight showing up just in time to see Negan's performance and hear about the plan so he could tell that to Rick and company. Now, with all this being said, let's see how they could make this trick work.
How is Negan's trick going to work?
The main question here is whether or not this walkers' guts trick will affect a person the same way a bite would. After all, it's not like the survivors never came into contact with walker blood. They have literally covered themselves with it on more than one occasion and Father Gabriel is the only one who ever got sick.
However, Negan's trick isn't just to let the guts touch the enemy, but to let it get in their body through a wound or something which would get them infected. And that's pretty much how (comic book spoilers) Nicholas died in "The Walking Dead" comics. He was slashed in the back with a walker-blood-infected knife and died of that wound.
But on the other hand, we shouldn't forget that Rick stabbed his hand with a blade that had been plunged in a walker, while in Alexandria. And nothing happened. Also, remember that episode when Shane cut his hand with the same knife he used to kill a zombie? Again, he didn't die because of it.
All in all, this could be just another "The Walking Dead" continuity error, but then again, maybe the trick is to gunk up weapons with so much tainted zombie blood that it would be impossible for the enemy not to die as a result. Only time will tell.
What do you think of Negan's new idea?
