Seriously dude, what show have you been watching? All of that is stuff they should be doing anyway. Again, that's the whole point. Had they listened to Rick initially, they would have been more prepared but it still might not have mattered because sometimes you just won't be able to deal with what comes. You can only be ready for something.
Again, stuff that they should be doing anyway. That's. The. Point.
You're not getting it. They should be prepared for everything because they cannot know what to expect. The Wolves are just the first and once they're gone there will be another group to deal with. They can't know what the specific threat will be though. They just have to be aware that it's coming.
You can't cater for each threat. It's just not possible. Your only realistic option is to be as prepared as possible. Train people to shoot, fight, watch and be ready (fortify those flimsy walls for a start).
Train them how? It's to late to train them. That's the whole point! You cannot train them after its happened. You can only train them to be capable of dealing with the reality of what's out there as effectively as possible when it comes. If 200 of them come with guns, how can you train for that? You can't. If a thousand of them with machetes turn up, how do you train for that?
The idea that you train for specific attacks is ludicrous. Once the Wolves are dealt with, the next threat will be on its way. You can only train to be ready for something; not something specific. That's why knowing what they're going to do simply doesn't help you. Does knowing that they're coming from the west with 30 men change the fact that the residents are hopeless fighters, terrible shooters, Molly-coddled fools etc etc.
Step one was making the resident understand that... sooner or later, people would be coming. Doesn't matter where, how or why. It only matters that you understand... they are coming.
Sorry, but you're the one not getting it. Yes, in an ideal world they SHOULD have already done all those things. They didn't.
Now, they know an attack is imminent and they likely have a limited amount of time to prepare for it. That means PRIORITIZING preparations if at all possible (IE, if you have decent information about what's coming right now). If you can't get that information, then you can't get it. Tough luck, oh well. But to not even try to get that information when the opportunity is presented on a silver platter is dumb.
Interesting debate around Carol's actions regarding Morgan's prisoner , something I don't think I've seen mentioned is that her absolutely saved lives during the immediate attack. I agree with the folks saying this was not the time to try and take prisoners, the attack is ongoing, the prisoner is NOT secure/subdued/no-longer-a-threat. So long as his friend are actively attacking he could easily be freed and re-join the attack, the only way to counter act that risk would be to station a competent guard; our only available guard would have been Morgan.
Think about what Morgan did AFTER Carol shot that guy, he chased off the group of five, as well as confronted the Alpha wolf in the house. If he had been busy guarding the prisoner , he could not have done wither of those things.
Now, we could assume all six of those wolves were on the cusp of a change of heart, and even if Morgan had not stopped them, they would not have hurt anyone else; I think it's much more reasonable to assume had he not stopped them, more folks would have died and/or been captured.
I also think we got clear evidence in this episode that the characters are sharing important information with each other off screen. Father Gaberiel asked Carl if he (Carl) had heard what he(Father Gaberiel) had said about the group, to which Carl nodded.
With that in mind, I think it's safe to assume Carol knows about
- Morgan's encounter with the wolves,
- Noah's community with the 'Wolves Not Far' message and the zombie's with W's carved in their heads
- The Trap with the 'Wolves Not Far' message
- The zombies in the area with W's carved in their heads
- The lady tied to the tree and gutted with a W carved in her head.
The only Wolf related information we the audience saw that Carol could not know about was the killing of red poncho guy and resetting their trap.
One last thought I had, I am really not against gathering information, I just disagreed with the timing. For all the heat Carol is taking, I have not seen a single criticism of Morgan killing the last guy when he could have easily subdued him. That would have been a much better time to consider it, of course Morgan had no way of knowing this was the last attacker so I think he made the right call.
Well, he was already tied up and knocking the dude unconscious and dragging him under a bush would take a grand total of 30 seconds of Morgan's time. Not a long-term solution, obviously, but it was clearly not a long-term situation either. One way or the other, everything would've been done before the guy woke up.
As for the last guy, I can't remember the scene very well - I was under the impression that Morgan couldn't easily subdue him, he seemed more resilient, etc. I'm also not 100% sure he's actually dead, but I'm guessing that probably is the case. If Morgan could've subdued him also, then, yes, he was just as dumb as Carol in that moment.
Preparing to repel an army of 1000 poorly trained wolves armed with knives is not the same as preparing to repel an army of 50 well trained wolves with guns.
Like hell it isn't. If you're behind a fortification (a wall), have the high ground (a tower) and guns of your own, the defense is exactly the same. Put people with guns on the wall-top and in the tower and walk the greatest volume of fire you can generate up the enemy's path of advance.
You guys have got to stop acting like this is some standing army which understands how all this ideally works. You spend all your time just putting as many alexandrians as possible on the walls (and - incidentally, they don't actually even have walls you can stand on) and 90% will not even see a small group of well trained attackers coming until they're over the wall.
But while the skilled people are taking that risk they have to create a bigger risk leaving behind a town full of people who know jack shit about what they're doing. That is not the time for some half-assed OSS mission.
Nobody ever said send everyone. And nobody ever said sending someone would even be the smartest thing, necessarily. The point is to interrogate the wolf and see what he says, then make further decisions about what is and isn't worth the risk. If he doesn't say anything worth confirming, then there's no point in sending anyone. If he does, then you have to decide how much it might be worth if it's true.
The people of the ASZ don't even have basic training in Walker World 101, and if you need them to participate in the town's defense you need that defense to be as basic as possible. The previous episode showed what happens when you devise a plan too complex for their tiny sheltered minds to follow. They panic, run and get killed. For a pure defense you don't need anything complex. Pass out the guns, get people as high up as possible and standby for the next attack. Need intelligence on which direction the bad guys will come from? You have a lookout tower. Finding out which direction the enemy is coming from is what they were made for! Get some people with half a brain and set up a proper watch!
Hooks is right. You intelligence wonks keep advocating this course of action just so the ASZ can make preparations they should have made friggin' ages ago. That is a huge waste of time and energy. That's not just closing the barn after the horse got free. That's like locking the barn after the horse is in the glue factory.
So because they've had one attack and know that another is likely to come (maybe tomorrow, but maybe next week, nobody knows) they should really just stop making anymore actual preparations and do nothing but watch the horizon?
That sounds like the absolute worst thing they could do.
And what kills me this wouldn't even be a debate if Carol hadn't been the one doing the killing. Up thread someone said no one has commented on the lives Carol saved with her actions, but the whole problem is it was Carol. If it had been anyone else the fact that lives were saved wouldn't need to be addressed. It would be obvious. But no, it was evil heartless Carol, who torched two side characters and killed a little girl and wanted to give more children knives and killin' lessons. Evil Evil Carol!
Who by the way, just helped save an entire fucking town.
Sorry, but I don't give a damn about who did it. It was a stupid decision, period.
I do follow the comic books and I forgive what they did to the Andrea character because of how fantastic Carol turned out 
.
