that is what Sheriff's Rick & his posse are for, i.e., they are going to kill the bad guys who want hot showers & clean laundry

they have not met any organized groups like the Governor or the Termites yet

as to smaller groups, they carefully watch potential members to see how they treat each other and their women and children

 

And think about their position. They have a nice cozy safe home to go to, with running water and houses, and a wall, and they spend WEEKS following a group with a baby lol. Weeks. Instead of going home. Like I said, I would have been like, 'ok guys, we've been watching them for half a day. They care about each other. They take turns carrying one man's infant. The women are treated as equals. Come on, round them up, I want to be back in time for smashed potato hour.

 

I will say, one of my favorite lines of the episode was when Aaron said something like, "you've been without food and you haven't turned on each other". I had never even considered that as a possibility, and it made me unexpectedly proud of our group and how much they care about each other.

 

Yeah me too.. Good question. That's some serious concrete and steel!! They musta had a crane of some sort, or done whatever they did to build the pyramids.. Also where and how they moved that material? That's a serious job, so its crazy to think no one saw that and tried to take it over... It'll be interesting to see if this gets explained.

 

I'm just happy the group has finally met other 'good' people. Was kind of sick of every other living thing being bad guys.

 

But are they really good people, or are you just saying that because it's your boyfriend?

 

That's too funny, I was thinking about the pyramids too. I certainly hope they explain how they were able to construct this fortress, because if they had the manpower to do so, they wouldn't need our group anyway.

 

With the exception of that young couple that Rick and Carol met, the guy who they ran into at Terminus, nearly everyone else they have met has been evil. (Excepting those that joined the group)

 

Wasn't there a random group of survivors outside camping in season 4, that the nice leader Pete didn't want to raid, and later they were all found murdered & the governor killed Pete and threw his walker body in the lake?

(I suppose Rick & co didn't meet them, but I'm trying to remember who else they met in past seasons?)

 

Hence the setup. Cue suspense music.

 

It's common sense. "If you can't beat them, join them" they recruit potential threats to join them by befriending them. I would actually feel more secure living in Alexandria knowing potential new people/neighbors are all watched. ie, no ambushes like the governor on the Prison.

Imagine if Aaron didn't stalk rick's group to befriend them, and rick randomly came across Aleandria. he might have raided the place worried that if he didn't they would raid him.

 

Alexandria makes no sense to me and Rick was right to conclude there is something screwy. If the community there isn't predatory then they'd have to be a predator magnet. They send out someone as naive as Aaron to recruit? He'd be dead in a heartbeat. His 'strategy' for selecting good guys is to eavesdrop with a bionic ear. The last 'community' which offered an almost identical sanctuary to these people ended with Rick, Glenn and Daryl leaning over a trough while two nutters methodically bashed each person to death, cut their throat to bleed them out, dismembered their corpses and hung them up to dry to be later eaten. And now Glenn wants to trust the next group they come across because this guy 'looks ok' or 'we need this'?? They live in the middle of the nightmare landscape surrounded by walls (which scream 'look cool stuff and women in here') and think nobody can get it in? Ever heard of ladders, explosives, deceit, biological warfare, fire etc etc? Rick would have processed all this in an instant and sensibly concluded that it was 99.99% chance of another Terminus. He's not 'broken'. He's not 'paranoid'. He's not suffering from PTSD. None of the others even thought to have someone(s) stay behind and send a smaller group in first. Not even to hide a gun like Rick. Rick is the only sane one left. Even if they are all nice inside oF Alexandriaq, Rick will realise that it's a big fat supply warehouse for every band of cannibals in 1oo miles. Defended by Care Bears and Smurfs who are just looking for people they can trusta dn love.

 

You're 99.99% calculation is a tad high. Sure, he should be caution, and they should have left people behind instead of all going inside. However, the idea that we should avoid safe zones just because other people will want those safe zones, kind of makes life hopeless doesn't it? If we resign ourselves to never settling in a safe zone then we are resigning ourselves to a life no better than wandering around from one temporary shelter to another, until we die.

 

Aaron is totally wrong to conclude that this group 'haven't turned on ech other'. 'We're not friends.' Absolutely right. They're allies born of desperation. Take away the immediate dnager and I'll bet they can't get far enough away from each other as everytime they look at a member of the group they will remember just horror. RIck talsk about them as his 'family' and they all seem to just cringe. Each person in the group is like a vampire, sucking whatever quality or strength they don't have from others. Except poor Eugene, nobody is getting anything from him anymore..... Give Maggie amd Glenn just a small chance to get a domestic life going and these others will be a distant memory for them. Rick let's the others talk him into insane risks, because he needs to feel like he's protecting someone, to compensate for his inability to protect his real family. If they start to be less dependent on him, he's not going to feel that away about them much longer.

 

Bingo!!!

 

You have to think that this is the first time that recruiting efforts have resulted in a punch to the face and a broken ankle, along with taking route 23 instead of 16 and the recruits driving instead of the recruiters.

Neither of these two guys seemed to know how to handle a situation when the people you want to attract respond with anything but "you have a walled community that you say is safe?! We're all in can you get us there yesterday?!".

Bringing Rick's band inside is like adding a contingent of Special Forces veterans to an existing under strength rag tag militia.

 

Umm I don't know about Rick but if I was in Ricks shoes I'd think id be suffering from some mad PTSD.
I dont have an MD behind my name but I do got some letters; LISW and if I had to make a list of the all the possible incidents leading to PTSD I would take up 17 pages of this thread.
But that's all speculation cause I am not Rick.

 

Yeah one would imagine that most of the people in the group would have some degree of PTSD at this point. I do agree with @Billy Pilgrim that they are nuts for taking off in the middle of the night, in their big group, to Alexandria. You would think someone from that group would have spoken up about it. Sasha. Daryl. Carol. Glenn. Abe & Rosita who are supposed to be military & should know better also. Just a bad, poorly thought out move all around.

 

Aaron's welcoming presentation royally sucks. He's begging to be murdered eventually by some group more paranoid than Rick's.

 

Yeah. Aaron's probably been lucky, so far. Rick tied him up and hit him, but what if he were wrong about Rick's group? What if they only seemed like good people, but weren't? Being so forward can come across as pretty antagonistic, and some people are bound to react badly.

Although, he did mention that he killed two people who tried to kill him. So maybe people have reacted badly to his approach before. Or maybe those people had nothing to do with him scouting...