Walking Dead: Eugene Porter is he a Cheetah that can change his spots?

by: EVette Suarez

BEWARE SPOILERS!!!

We have all grown to know Eugene Porter from his famous roles in The Walking Dead comics and television series. When we first got introduced to his character on the tv show we were introduced to not only him but the idea that there was still hope in a hopeless world.  This hope that still managed to survive was the only thing that was keeping Eugene alive; because let’s face it he was an odd fellow that was useless in combat and survival.

The expectation of Eugene was that he had a way to put an end to this zombie virus that had spread so quickly. The first scene debuting Mr. Eugene Porter is of Abraham and Rosita coming across a man that is about to die due to being overcome with walkers and of course they save him.  Eugene saw this as an opportunity to have his personal bunch of bodyguards then lied and told them that he was part of the Human Genome Project; a project that he and nine other scientists had been a part of.  He was the only one that survived, and now humanity depended on his very existence and survival, CUNNING, RIGHT? 

Now some time passes, and they are all faced with the bone-chilling fact that Eugene is a filthy liar and has been using others for his survival. There is no hope, this thing that people had been holding on to was a sham, and worst off people had died to protect Eugene’s deceit.   Eugene was worthless to anyone around him and was made to look horrible because let’s face it- he was.  After realizing what an utter piece of garbage he was he then decided that he should take it upon himself and become a contributing and beneficial part of society. It is at this point that we start to see a little bit of character growth from Eugene and start to hate him a little less. Instead of being a coward and manipulator for self-preservation sake he was manning up and trying to do things on his own; even though he still kind of sucked at it. I will say though personally the point where he changed for me was when he bit another man’s appendage from his body. Who can say that if they were in a situation where biting a man’s gherkin off would ensure your survival, that you would? Sad as it is to say, but this is where I finally saw Eugene had balls, no pun intended. 
 
So, we fast forward to where Eugene can contribute more in the way of making bullets for his community of Alexandria. Negan finds this out and of course, takes him for his selfish reasons; because he is freaking Negan duh. Instead of treating Eugene like a piece of garbage like he does everyone else,  Negan manages Eugene gently like the unique snowflake that he is. This act, of course, makes Eugene feel safe and so he starts to fit in almost seamlessly into the Savior fold. The episode that makes us all question his loyalties to Rick is when we see he has a way out and multiple opportunities to take Negan out; when one of Negan’s wives ask him to make poison capsules for “their friend” he could have easily slipped Negan a Mickey and then everyone could have been living on easy street. 

That doesn’t make for good tv though does it? No of course not let’s make this challenging and make everyone go crazy because who cares. I and others like me though were still thinking that Eugene was playing an angle, we all wanted so badly for it to be all part of this grand master plan but sadly I don’t believe it was. This program became apparent in the very last episode, the other side, where Rosita and Sasha came to Eugene’s rescue, but he refused to escape with them and then told them that he did not ask for anyone to go for him. 

This infuriates viewers because it is like all that character development was for nothing and he just transitioned back into the sneaky snake that he was at the beginning of the show. Eugene has never been a fan favorite of mine, but this makes him even quieter down then he was when we first got introduced to him. What are your thoughts do you think Eugene is still playing an angle? Do we believe that he is still loyal to Rick? The jury is still out, and we are all looking forward to seeing what the producers have in store for Mr. Eugene Porter.