Not Tomorrow Yet

"Not Tomorrow Yet" is the twelfth episode of Season 6 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It aired on March 6, 2016 at 9/8c on AMC, and on March 7, 2016 at 9pm on Fox.

Plot Synopsis
Carol collects supplies from Alexandria's diminished pantry. She forages for acorns in the forest, then bakes acorn cookies and hands them out to Alexandria residents. Carol gives Tobin a container of cookies, and he compliments her on their taste. They flirt.

Rick's group returns from the Hilltop. Rick orders everyone to gather at the church, telling Carol, "We're gonna have to fight."

Morgan finds Carol at the cemetery and asks why she never told Rick that Morgan had been holding the W Man prisoner. Carol evades his question. She leaves the cemetery after placing a cookie on Sam's grave.

At the church, Rick tells the community about the deal that Maggie struck with the Hilltop. He rationalizes pre-emptively killing the Saviors, explaining they would eventually find and attack Alexandria, and that by taking them out, they are ensuring the continued survival of the community. Morgan urges Rick to talk with the Saviors instead of killing them, but no one else supports him. "We kill them all," Rick declares, which seems to cause a discomfort in Tara.

Carol lies in bed, unable to sleep. She opens a journal and adds "Ws 7" to a list of all the people she's killed: "R, K, D, L, Terminus/Courtyard 3?, Candle Woman 4." Carol then solemnly circles the tally at the bottom, "18."

Meanwhile, Maggie tells Glenn that she intends to go with them to the Saviors' compound because she was the one who enabled the deal with the Hilltop, but assures him she'll stay on the perimeter.

Carol walks outside, smoking a cigarette and joins Tobin on his front porch as they share a cigarette together. He admits that Carol is capable of doing things that terrify him, and explains his view that she can do such things because of her motherly instincts. He adds that many Alexandrians see her as a mother figure, but she's something else to him. They kiss.

Inside their home, Abraham packs his bag and tells Rosita that he's leaving her. Rosita cries, demanding an explanation. "When I met you, I thought you were the last woman on Earth," Abraham says. "You're not."

Denise finds Tara lost in thought and asks what's wrong. Tara tells Denise that she loves her and invites Denise to join her on an upcoming two-week run. Denise explains that she's the only doctor and has to stay behind, but she'll tell Tara she loves her when she comes back. They kiss.

At a meeting to coordinate the attack, Andy (from the Hilltop) draws a map of the interior and exterior of the Saviors' compound for Rick, Maggie, Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne. He explains that the main building has one entrance guarded by two men, but that he is unsure of how many there are in total. Rick proposes they attack at night while everyone is asleep. He plans to walk right in through the front entrance. "They want Gregory's head, right?" he says. "We're gonna give it to them."

The next day, Rick's group caravans down the road. After they sound the horns on their vehicles to attract any nearby walkers, he orders everyone to separate on foot and reconvene in a couple of hours. Rick tells Father Gabriel that there's no turning back from the mission now, and Gabriel agrees, declaring with confidence that he will not retreat. Rick asks why he's still wearing his priest's garb. Gabriel says he's still who he was (he thinks), and jokes that "it'll be harder for them to see me in the dark." The two men share a laugh.

As Carol is smoking another cigarette, Rosita approaches her telling that she nearly blurted out Morgan's secret about the W Man at the church meeting. "He doesn't want to kill," Carol says, defending Morgan. Rosita begrudgingly agrees not to tell anyone.

In the woods, Glenn and Heath kill several walkers and share their anxiety about killing the Saviors, having never killed living people before. Glenn saws off a walker's head.

The group reconvenes on the road, where Rick proposes that they attack a couple of hours before dawn. Carol pulls Rick aside and chastises him for bringing Maggie on the mission. She insists on staying behind to help Maggie guard the perimeter. Rick, Jesus, and Andy size up three decapitated walker heads to decide which one looks most like Gregory. Jesus picks a head but remarks that the nose is different. Rick grabs the head and pummels the nose, figuring Andy can tell the Saviors that he broke Gregory's nose in the struggle. Andry remarks that "the Saviors: they're scary but those pricks got nothing on you."

That night, Andy drives up to the Saviors' compound alone, and announces that he has Gregory's head. Two guards walk out and inspect it. Satisfied, one of the guards goes inside to get Craig. Daryl approaches silently and kills the other guard, and the group emerges from hiding, removing the body from sight then killing the first guard when he returns with Craig. The group sneaks into the compound. Rick enters a bedroom and quietly plunges his knife into a man's head as he sleeps.

In another room, Glenn and Heath discover two men asleep, and grimly prepare to kill them with their knives. Glenn is able to overcome his nerves, and offers to kill the other for Heath as well. They find a trophy wall of Polaroid photos showing the bodies of Savior victims, all of whose heads have been crushed.

Tara, Gabriel, Andy, Jesus, and Craig wait outside in a car. Tara confesses to Gabriel that she told Denise that she loved her, but only did so to hide her misgivings about their mission to kill the Saviors. Jesus asks Tara if she really loves Denise anyway. Tara says she does. "So you know what you're fighting for," Jesus says.

Abraham covers for Sasha as she tries to open a locked door. However, a Savior discovers them and attacks Abraham, but is pulled off him by Sasha before he can do anymore harm to Abraham. Sasha then stabs the Savior in the stomach, but he manages to pull the alarm, alerting the compound to the attack.

Maggie and Carol hear the alarm from their perimeter posts. Maggie insists on going to help. "You are staying here," Carol says firmly.

Tara tells Jesus to drive back to the Hilltop with Craig to uphold the deal. Jesus asks Andy to take Craig back so that he can stay behind and help.

Rick's group moves through the rest of the compound with their guns, engaging the Saviors, who are now awake and fighting back. Aaron hastily shuts himself in a bedroom to hide from a group of Saviors, and is forced to stab a Savior who was in the room, in self-defense. Tara shoots at two Saviors as they flee the compound, killing one and mortally wounding the other. Glenn and Heath run to the armory with Saviors on their heels. They slam the door shut, grab guns and spray through  the door with bullets. They open the door and find a pile of dead bodies. One of the Saviors stirs and raises his gun. Jesus shoots him dead, solemnly declaring that "this is the new world."

Outside, Gabriel approaches the Savior Tara injured, and tells him to drop his gun. The Savior taunts him, telling him that they are both dead. Gabriel recites a verse from the Gospel of John [14:1-2] before shooting him. "Amen." he says stoically.

With the fighting over, Rick's group emerges from the building. They find a small parking lot of vehicles. Glenn asks Heath to postpone his 2 week supply run with Tara, but Heath refuses. The two of them take an RV and leave immediately.

Back in Alexandria, Morgan welds together the metal gate to a prison cell. He takes a break and becomes lost in thought.

Michonne queries Rick about which one of the men they killed was Negan. Just then, a lone surviving Savior tries to escape on a motorcycle, which Daryl recognizes as his own. Rosita shoots the Savior off the bike and Daryl tackles him as he tries to flee and beats him into submission. Daryl demands to know where the Savior got the bike. As Rick holds a gun to the Savior's head, a woman speaks through the man's walkie-talkie, ordering Rick to lower his gun. "We've got a Carol and a Maggie. We're thinking that's something you want to chat about," the woman says.

Co-Stars

 * Carlos Aviles as Savior Guard #1
 * Ian Casselberry as Gabe
 * Vanessa Cloke as Anna
 * Steven Sean Garland as Older Savior
 * Jimmy Gonzales as Motorcycle Savior
 * G-Rod as Large Savior
 * Myke Holmes as Craig
 * Ted Huckabee as Bruce
 * Mandi Christine Kerr as Barbara
 * Dahlia Legault as Francine
 * Jeremy Palko as Andy
 * David Marshall Silverman as Kent

Uncredited

 * Chloe & Sophia Garcia-Frizzi as Judith Grimes
 * Alicia Witt as Paula (Voice Only)
 * Scott Hunter as Savior
 * Michelle Millage as Savior

Deaths

 * Gabe
 * At least 23 Saviors

Trivia

 * First (and last) appearance of Gabe.
 * First appearance of Craig.
 * First appearance of Primo.
 * First appearance of Paula. (Voice Only)
 * This is the last episode of Season 6 to feature Tara, as her actress, Alanna Masterson, was absent from the final four consecutive episodes of this season due to being pregnant.
 * Daryl gets his motorcycle back in this episode.
 * This is the first episode in which Glenn, Heath, Gabriel and Tara kill a living person.
 * This is the first time Gabriel has killed someone who wasn't bitten.
 * As of now, Eugene is the only surviving main character to not have killed a living person.
 * The scene where Glenn looks at the photos of people who have been killed by Negan mirrors his own demise in the episode "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be".
 * The title of this episode comes from when Carol was talking to Tobin.
 * One of the severed heads to be chosen from for Gregory's head was sculpted after Greg Nicotero's head.
 * One of the other two heads was sculpted after Johnny Depp's.
 * This episode featured the following songs:
 * "Weeds Or Wild Flowers" - Parsonsfield
 * "Arsonist's Lullabye" - Hozier, the same song used in the official trailer for Season 6.

Goofs/Errors

 * Despite having killed up to at least 9 Wolves (Aphid, Black Bearded Wolf, Satchel Wolf, Shaved Head Wolf, and 4 unnamed Wolves in "JSS", as well as Owen in "No Way Out"), Carol only added 7 Wolves to the list of people she had killed.