‘The Walking Dead’ actually has a lot in common with the presidential election

This recap contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 7, episode 3, titled “The Cell.” If you missed last week’s installment, catch up with our recap of episode 702.

If the Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead focused on Negan’s attempts to break Rick, this week’s episode was concerned with the sadistic leader’s attempts to do the same to Daryl.

But unlike Rick – whose vulnerabilities were clearly signposted when surrounded by his friends and family – Negan miscalculated with Daryl, separating him from the few people he cares about and thus removing any potential leverage the Saviors might’ve been able to use against him… at least at first.

If Negan had been canny enough to take two of Rick’s allies hostage instead of one, and used the threat of violence against one of Daryl’s friends instead of him, this would’ve been a much shorter episode. But as Daryl pointed out to Dwight at the end of the hour, Dwight ultimately chose to submit to Negan to protect his wife (just as she chose to “marry” Negan to protect Dwight).

That’s an honorable decision, and one that Daryl respects. Submitting simply to make his own life easier is far less defensible, especially for a man like Daryl, whose staunch moral code is rivaled only by his terminal lack of self-worth.

What differentiates Rick’s group from Negan’s is the simple fact that their love for each other outweighs their sense of self-preservation. Each of them would happily sacrifice themselves to protect someone else, which is why Negan’s decision to kill Glenn as punishment for Daryl’s defiance was such an effective punishment. This week, it wasn’t the physical beating or mental assault that finally defeated Daryl, it was Dwight’s simple reminder that Daryl was the one responsible for Glenn’s death.

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Dwight’s varied and inventive attempts to erode Daryl’s resistance (a steady diet of dog food sandwiches and constant exposure to "Easy Street" would be enough to drive anyone insane) certainly provided plenty of opportunities for Norman Reedus to demonstrate his acting prowess – and for the costume and makeup departments to make the grungy warrior look even more disheveled than usual – but Dwight’s trajectory was arguably the more interesting plotline this week.

Daryl’s rebelliousness is a known quantity – we’ve seen our stoic hero being put through the emotional and physical wringer countless times over the past few seasons, and we can count on him to be unflinching in the face of danger no matter what the circumstances.

But in watching Dwight waver in following Negan’s orders, allowing a small sliver of doubt to crack his façade, we saw proof that Negan’s power is not absolute; that if enough of his followers recognized that they could easily overpower him by banding together, his whole system could easily be dismantled.

No method of leadership is perfect; both Rick and Ezekiel have demonstrated their fair share of hubris in recent episodes, and Hilltop’s Gregory is as arrogant as they come, but none of them are as callous as Negan. And as much as the show has hyped up Negan's arrival, I don't think any of the producers are espousing his methods of motivation -- he may look cool in a leather jacket, but a role model, he ain't.

The Walking Dead is best when it dispenses with its penchant for gore and shock value and instead interrogates the moral quandaries that arise when different personality types are thrown together and forced to coexist. Those thorny concerns have crystallized with the introduction of this larger-than-life villain, who is a concentrated distillation of Rick's recent "ends justify the means" approach, Ezekiel's showmanship and Gregory's mercenary egocentrism, all wrapped up in one foul-mouthed package. Negan is an embodiment of humanity's worst impulses -- a reactive id untethered from its restraint and critical reasoning.

His appearance in the world of The Walking Dead forces everyone to confront a pivotal question: Is fear a more effective leadership tool than hope? It’s a query that has never been more relevant; one that’s playing out on a global scale in our current political landscape – a landscape that sometimes doesn’t seem so far removed from the dystopian nightmare inhabited by Rick and his cohorts.

Negan’s preemptive strategy of “do it to them before they do it to us” springs from an assumption that everyone is guilty until proven innocent, that people respond more favorably to the stick than the carrot -- but that kind of cynicism doesn’t promote loyalty, just a thirst for chaos. I’d bet that Negan’s men don’t respect him so much as they enjoy exerting their authority over others (and avoiding a beatdown themselves), which is why they’ll ultimately be defeated.

Rick’s group might be on the defensive now, but we’re clearly heading towards a consolidation of forces between Alexandria, Hilltop and The Kingdom, and although Ezekiel is afraid of sustaining losses, his people would undoubtedly argue that it’s a price they’d be willing to pay to free themselves from the whims of a megalomaniacal despot.

As the Edmund Burke saying goes, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," so we could probably all stand to take a page out of Daryl’s playbook. Dwight certainly seems to be coming around to the idea that there must be a better way, but will there be anything left to salvage by the time he comes to his senses?

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.