'The Walking Dead' Recap: If 'Not Tomorrow Yet', then when?

The spectre of Season Two still looms large over The Walking Dead. So far, the second half of the season has been a disjointed collection of contrived plots and “Not Tomorrow Yet” continued to rush headlong down this path. Let’s not forget that “The Next World” was a mere two episodes ago, though it certainly is easy to forget since barely anything that transpired in that episode has cropped up in any meaningful way subsequent episodes. And while “Not Tomorrow Yet” is trying to play off “The Next World” – as evidenced by Carol’s bippity boppity opening baking cookies – it is the contrived nature of this half season that very little has resonated with the audience.

There is a way in which a story can seamlessly take you on a journey; where the plot subtly intertwines the the growth of the characters. While TWD has never been the greatest at hiding their seams, the past three episodes feel as though they have stopped trying to hide them. Instead, TWD is opting for the plot checklist method, where you just put a nice big red check next to plot points until you run out. Let’s take a brief look at what has happened since the beginning of “The Next World”:

1. Daryl and Rick find a random survivor who tricks them multiple times and is quite the escape artist (Jesus) – who they almost trust immediately.
2. Jesus tells them he has a settlement (Hilltop) he wants to show them because Rick and co. aren’t bad guys.
3. On the way to The Hilltop they happen to come across some Hilltoppers who need help. Rick and co. quickly help them. This is then used to gain favor with the Hilltop’s leader – Gregory.
4. Gregory tells them of The Saviors just in time for Rick and co. to witness some Hilltoppers attack Gregory to get back one of their friends from The Saviors, which in turn gives them proof they can take out The Saviors when they broker a deal. Gregory gives them supplies to take back to Alexandria as a down payment for the eradication of The Saviors.
5. The very next episode Rick and co. go to The Saviors’ compound to take care of them.

All of this has happened in, roughly, the past two and a half episodes. To compare, it took an entire half season (and one episode)  just for Rick and co. to attempt to clear out a bunch of zombies in a quarry and return back to Alexandria.

Now all of this rushing through plot might be forgivable if, say, the plot had a natural flow to it. But the break-neck speed through which plot is being told feels incredibly lazy and unrewarding. While the time jump before “The Next World” was somewhat refreshing, it was clear by the end of the episode the only reason there was a “time jump” in the first place was so that TWD could get to this “very exciting” plot thread of Rick and co. vs. Negan and The Saviors. The immediacy to which Rick and Maggie decide to take care of The Saviors in exchange for supplies just further proves that point.

We were told - and not shown - so much in “The Next World” that the characters’ motivations in both “Knots Untie” and “Not Tomorrow Yet” feel phony. We weren’t privy to Alexandria needing supplies so badly they are willing to take out a group of supposed bad guys after meeting, for the first time, a new and peaceful settlement in the Hilltop. But I discussed all of this in my recap for "The Next World.”

It is not just the contrived nature and the desire to sprint through the plot that makes “Not Tomorrow Yet” disappointing. It’s the fact that there has been, so far, no time for reflection about what they were going to do/what they have done and/or a clear shift in the morality of the group. Rick’s fake townhall meeting about attacking The Survivors (Rick you already took the supplies, if Alexandria had voted no would you have taken them back?) is met with little debate. When Morgan offers up his suggestion it is immediately rebuked by Aaron. Not even Tara, who was part of the Governor’s attack on the prison spoke up (later she had a seemingly half-hearted inner struggle about it). Ever since Season Two’s endless debate between Rick and Hershel there has been little desire to ever show contrasting debate again.

So without debate, there needs to be some sort of debriefing on the attack, showing how this preemptive attack against an unknown group has affected Rick and co. hopefully it will be addressed later on. But TWD didn’t do much to show us why The Saviors were really that bad of a group. Sure we were told they were extorting Hilltop, and a few of them stuck Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha up on the road, but their “evilness” is still largely in doubt. Just because the guards acted like idiot High School bullies or because a dozen polaroids of bashed in zombie heads were stuck on a Savior’s wall, doesn’t make The Saviors an evil group. If the morality of Rick’s attack isn’t addressed in a meaningful way later on then the lack of non-Rick and co. Alexandrians on the mission was a missed opportunity to show that Rick and co. were on the good side of the good-bad equilibrium. Outside of Heath (welcome back, Heath) there wasn’t really a member of Alexandria who did anything meaningful during the attack. And Heath didn’t even do much except shoot through a door at an unseen onslaught of Saviors.

After the countless Saviors were slain, fairly easily, it seemed like a natural conclusion had been reached for this segment of the plot. However, TWD contrived up a little more stupidity with Maggie and Carol being captured. While this did come as a bit of a surprise, it felt completely tacked on and just another way to force more plot down our throats. Maggie wanted to come on the attack because she brokered the deal but then decided to stay back with the vehicles. Carol, who is still questioning (at least that’s what we are supposed to believe) herself and who she has become, decided to stay back with Maggie. They have one scene together and then they are captured off screen. Great. It seemed like their whole reason for going on the mission was solely so they could be captured. They offered nothing to the mission as a whole and, in fact, didn’t even deal with any internal struggles they may have been having. It would have made far more sense for Carol to have stayed in Alexandria as she tries to figure out who she is – especially because of her budding romance with Tobin. Instead she does nothing on the mission except get captured. Yet another instance of doing something that makes little to no sense in the context of the characters all so there can be something “interesting” happening in next week’s episode.

“Not Tomorrow Yet” is a case of a show falsely believing they have learned something from their past mistakes. Instead of allowing what should have been a very important decision for Alexandria and its future to ruminate upon and debate TWD continues to gloss over the important stuff for the audience to connect with  just so they can fill your TV with action. But because there is little at stake for the characters, perceived through the audience, the action being shown is dull and cheap. Sure, we may remember the two minutes of Rick and Michonne being a couple from two episodes ago, but because we didn’t see their romantic connection grow it means little to nothing to the audience now. And the “thrill” of the possibility of one of the main characters dying has all been nullified by Glenn’s survival in the first half of the season. Without emotional investment in the characters’ self journey it doesn’t matter how much plot unfolds.