The Walking Dead saw Negan’s plan work when walker-blood tainted weapons were used to turn people at the Hilltop into Walkers, but is Tara the next to turn after taking an arrow shot from Dwight?
The war came to Hilltop on tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead and not everyone made it out alive. In fact, the Hilltop, despite bracing for an ambush from Simon and the others couldn’t inflict much damage at all despite shooting off a couple thousand rounds from their machine guns.
Negan’s plan to use walker-blood covered weapons to turn them, and not directly kill them, sounded like a ridiculous idea, but it worked and it left Hilltop in disarray. The infected weapons turned Tobin, Bruce and a few others at Hilltop who attacked from the inside while the Saviors were free and clear.
But it could have been much worse because Tara was moments away from having Simon use a blood-soaked cleaver on her. But before he could get to her, Dwight carefully shot an arrow from the crossbow to hit Tara with a glancing blow. This stopped Simon from attacking her and he moved on to another target.
Once Rick figured out the weapons were infected, Daryl and others went to Tara to tell her about this and since she was cut, they may have expected her to look a lot worse for wear. In actuality, she looked perfectly fine, she said it was just a scratch and wasn’t experiencing any of the fever-life symptoms those infected had.
This leads me to believe Dwight didn’t infect his arrows because he’s not on Negan’s side. He’s clearly left them and wants to be with Rick, Dwight and Tara. He had to save his own life and Tara’s and others when he rejoined the Saviors when Tara tried to kill him then and there. Dwight regrets not killing him because he thinks Tara is going to turn, but I think she’s gonna be safe.https://fansided.com/2018/03/25/the-walking-dead-season-8-episode-13-recap-highlights/
Dwight didn’t infect his arrows and he shot Tara as a way to protect her from being attacked by someone who had infected their weapons. Yes, it sounds strange to say a person saved another by shooting them with an arrow, but that’s what I think is the case here. And once it sinks in, Tara will realize that Dwight is sincere when he says he wants to be on their side and wants Negan dead just as much as she does.