Thank you! I want to thank your post but can't. I don't think it was Heath either since he did a Merle. "Swear" was written pretty bad. Tara could've told the group instead of screen about Heath.

 

It was Beth!!!

 

He saw an army surrounding him

 

My first thought was that Rick saw Heath. Then I thought about scene from a wildlife documentary where one chimpanzee smiles at another as a gesture of friendship. So I can go either way.

 

I think, that Gabriel took the stuff from Alexandria to buy Rick an army and Rick just realised that

 

Yeah, I know he looks good right. I found it on tumblr. i just wish the creator had edit out Carol & Michonne's hand. But, I'll take him how I can get him. LOL!

 

Totally agree with this. When you have a bunch of guns pointed at you, you're first thought is "Oh shit" not "here's my army". They are not HANDING him guns they are pointing them. Lol

That's why I don't think it was because he was happy to have more fighters. Also who's to say they aren't part of Negan's group? Rick knows nothing about these people so assuming they will fight with him against someone he doesn't even know if they know....nah.

 

yeah, but process of elimination... He knows it's connected to the boat, and that the boat was a set up, that's how they tracked Rick back to ASZ, and somehow got Gabe to go with them.
And he has to have deduced that they are not with Negan, bc they wouldn't have snuck into ASZ, they would have walked in during broad daylight.
And I think that it's also reasonable to assume that means they are either 'owned by Negan' like the other communities, but they have a lot of people and weapons for that, so maybe they are on their own? And Rick will bring the message to them about Negan.
Rick has leverage, since he has all the intel on Negan and also people willing to fight. Maybe this group has even had run ins with the Saviors like Daryl, Abe and Sasha had, and just don't now how extensive they are. And if they had wanted Team Family dead, they would have killed them from their hiding spots, so they are taking them alive for a reason.

 

In normal cicumrstances, no. But before this he had little hope of taking on Negan. The goofy smile was because for the first time in awhile he realized he has a real chance at beating Negan with this army. He's not horrified because surrendering to this group wouldn't be any worse than surrendering to the saviors. I think he was laughing at the irony of being under the thumb of the saviors actually made him happy to have an army point guns at his face. He had a goofy laugh when realizing the hilarity of that exact situation.

the #1 reason I'm sure it's this and NOT because he saw a recognizable face is how slowly he came to have the laugh and smile. If you saw someone you knew, you'd smile instantly. For Rick it came on a bit slowly after processing the situation.

 

Maybe Glenn just crawled out from under a dumpster after only pretending to be dead.

 

Ditto! My thoughts too.

 

And as we all know, every time they got trapped by an hostile community, they always turned out to be friendly people ready to help...

If there is no sign of any link to them (Gabriel being with them for instance), and he's just happy to have these freaks pointing guns and threatening his group once again because "maybe they'll help", that's dumb.

I'm not saying you're wrong about that being the case, I'm just saying they can't hold a straight character for shit. Three days ago he was ready to piss himself on command for Negan to protect his people, now he's just happy to see them taken as targets by unknown freaks, just because that might mean he'll have a few guns to take them to war...

 

I'm not sure friendship is the message that came across with that smile. You've got an army pointing guns at this guy and his group and he breaks out into a smile. Going with the premise that there's no one he recognizes in the crowd, I think that may convey that he's a little bit cray or he's one hell of a badass.

Since I don't believe these people are yet under Negan's thumb, badass is something they may respect. I still think Rick will have to win their friendship by passing some kind of test, but now they'll give him a chance to do just that.

 

Agree with others that he's smiling because, out of nowhere, he now potentially has a new group of well armed, experienced fighters...he just has to convince them...But Rick, as we know, is a good talker