Every now and then in The Walking Dead, a group called the Wolves rears its head, famous for each member carving a W into their foreheads. They were last scene in the episode JSS, when they invaded Alexandria, yet were nowhere to be found for the rest of the season. Why?
Where the hell are the Wolves?
In the graphic novel, once Negan is rightfully put behind bars, the next antagonists are the Whispers, a nomadic community of thousands who walk amongst the dead by draping themselves with their skin. Could the Wolves be replacing the Whispers? Or where they just a thought that was quickly abandoned?
Now, the Wolves clearly had some development to them, more than the Termites, really, whose only shtick was that they were cannibals (which didn’t make much sense to me, personally, as most people would hunt and gather before ever resorting to consuming human flesh). Carving your initial into your forehead is something I could see a tribe of barbarians doing, most likely as both an attempt at intimidation and a representation of unity. Is that all the Wolves are, though?
In the infancy of human civilization many cities were constantly bombarded by bands of marauders. The idea of the walkers restarting history was present multiple times in both the comic books and the show. Were the Wolves just added to push that allusion further? Possibly return but only to kill, rape and plunder?
The idea of a sporadic, unpredictable threat to Alexandria and its inhabitants does seem cool, yet at the same time uninformed and tacked on.
Or were the Wolves added to complete Morgan’s story arc? Owen represented Morgan’s hold on the new moral code that he learned from Eastman, and as we were able to see once he died he was 
able to kill once again (that being a good or bad thing up to you). To complete his narrative the Wolves must return, and really test out how well he’ll deal with taking lives, worrying about reverting back to the man he was when his son died, (shooting at everyone on sight).
Or perhaps I was right when I said that they were simply a plotline that was intended to be something more and was left to prattle on and die? All of these are merely speculation, my friends. We have no idea where the Wolves went, and, frankly, I prefer that. Speculating and hypothesising is what makes watching a show good. Bouncing these ideas off of one another is what makes us want to tune in next week. What’s the fun of watching a show if you already know exactly what’s going to happen?
