Not Tomorrow Yet

"Not Tomorrow Yet" is the twelfth episode of the sixth season of AMC's The Walking Dead. It is the seventy-ninth episode of the series overall. It premiered on March 6, 2016. It was written by Seth Hoffman and directed by Greg Nicotero.

Plot
Rick and the group realize the only way to maintain peace in Alexandria is to fight a new enemy. This time, though, they might be outmatched.

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 he was 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 proposes that they pre-emptively attack the Saviors, as doing so would prevent them from eventually finding (and attacking) Alexandria. Morgan disagrees, arguing that they should try talking to the Saviors before resorting to more extreme measures. Rick takes a vote, and no one sides with Morgan. As Rick declares that, "We kill them all," Tara seems uncomfortable, remembering that exact phrase from The Governor.

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. However, she assures him that she will stay on the perimeter.

Carol walks down the street, smoking a cigarette. She joins Tobin on his front porch, so they can share it. He admits that Carol is capable of doing things that terrify him. However, he believes that her ability to do such things is a result of her motherly instinct. He further states that many Alexandrians see her as a mother figure, but to him, she's something else. They kiss.

Inside their home, Abraham packs his bags 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 as the only doctor, she is obligated to stay behind. Tara says that she loves her. Denise says that she'll tell Tara the same 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. He explains to Rick, Maggie, Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne that the main building has one entrance that is guarded by two men. However, he is unsure of the total number of Saviors they will be up against. Rick proposes that they attack at night while everyone is asleep. His plan is 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, the group travels down the road in a caravan. After they sound the horns on their vehicles to attract any nearby walkers, Rick orders everyone to separate on foot, and reconvene in a couple of hours. He tells Father Gabriel that there's no turning back from the mission now. 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.

Rosita approaches Carol, and tells her 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 becomes defensive, but eventually 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. Andy 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. Emerging, he is nearly killed by a Savior that surprises him outside but is saved by Rosita. Tara shoots at two Saviors as they flee the compound, killing one and mortally wounding the other.

Multiple teams engage Saviors as a member of each team checks locked doors for the Saviors' armory without success. With Saviors on their heels, Glenn and Heath take cover in a room that turns out to be the armory. 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, unnoticed by the two men. Jesus shoots him dead, solemnly declaring that "This is the new world."

Outside, Gabriel approaches the Savior whom 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 Primo
 * 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)
 * Anna Swiney as Barbara's Daughter
 * Elijah Grubbs as Barbara's Son
 * Scott Hunter as Savior
 * Michelle Millage as Savior

Deaths

 * Gabe
 * Savior Guard #1
 * Older Savior
 * Large Savior
 * At least 21 unnamed Saviors

Trivia

 * First appearance of Primo.
 * First appearance of Paula. (Voice Only)
 * First (and last) appearance of Gabe.
 * First (and last) appearance of Craig.
 * The title of the episode, "Not Tomorrow Yet", comes from when Carol was talking to Tobin.
 * This episode marks Josh McDermitt's 25th appearance on the TV Series.
 * 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.
 * Her actress revealed on The Talking Dead that she was almost nine months pregnant filming this episode and she kept filming because she said she would have been bored at home otherwise.
 * 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.
 * 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".
 * One of the severed heads to be chosen from for Gregory's head was sculpted after Greg Nicotero's head.
 * Greg Nicotero also played a decapitated zombie head in Day of the Dead, a film by George A. Romero.
 * One of the other two heads was sculpted after Johnny Depp's.
 * Big Tiny's corpse can be seen in one of the pictures of Negan's victims as an easter egg, even though he died in Season 3 and was killed by Tomas.
 * 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.

Comic Parallels

 * Abraham breaking up with Rosita for Sasha, claiming that she isn't the last woman on earth is adapted from a similar scene in Issue 85, where Rosita breaks up with Abraham after finding out he had an affair with Holly instead.
 * Morgan building a cell in Alexandria is a slight nod to Negan's punishment starting in Issue 127.

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.
 * When Glenn and Heath enter one of the Saviors' compound rooms, there are 11 Polaroid photos lined up (in three relatively parallel columns) on one of the walls. Later, when Glenn takes a look at them, there are 20 photos shown, this time with no well-defined rows or columns.