There's nothing worse than a lost cause, and I'm getting increasingly nervous about Rick Grimes' promise to take out the latest Big Bad. Who is Negan's captive Craig on The Walking Dead, the guy that Rick and Team Alexandria have vowed to rescue? He was taken from Hilltop in order to get his brother Ethan, another Hilltop resident, to deliver a "message" to the community's leader Gregory in the form of a knife to the chest.
A similar scenario played out in The Walking Dead comics with a few slight changes, and not a lot of good news for what's to come. In the comics, Ethan's captured companion is a girl named Crystal instead. From a "damsel in distress" perspective, I'm fine with this change. However, it doesn't seem to make that big of a difference. Crystal has not been seen or heard from since being kidnapped. They never found out what happened to her, though Jesus and Rick both presume her to be dead. Theoretically, she could still appear in the story. Still, that's kind of a let down, isn't it? Does this mean that, on the AMC series, Rick's rescue mission is already doomed?
Based on Negan's reputation alone, it's unlikely that the confrontation is going to be anything less than devastating. Ethan seemed like a decent guy, and Craig's capture drove him to attempted murder. Granted, in the graphic novels, Rick goes home to Alexandria and does not try to make things right with the deceased Ethan. So it's possible that we may see Craig again, unlike his comic book counterpart Crystal. I just hope that we find out for certain what happened to the Hilltop prisoner, and that they don't tell him how Rick reacted to killing Ethan if we ever see him again on The Walking Dead.
Images: Gene Page/AMC; itsgreenjoker/Tumblr
