Originally Posted by hazydayz:
“Seeing the world open up now is great but it would be nice to see it all in one episode rather than dedicated episodes. It also makes you wonder why Rick and his group never really travelled that far. IT makes you wonder how close these groups are, the Kingdom, the Hilltop, Alexandria, Negan's group. I understand maybe wanting to settle down in one place and making sure it is safe but it seems like when Rick's group goes somewhere, even Alexandria, they all seem to be doing quite well, they all seem to feed each other and look after each other, why couldn't Rick's group do that on their own? It would be interesting to find out how far apart they are, are they are half an hour apart, couple of hours? We always seen the runs they did, the food runs etc. How could they have done all that place to place and never came across any of these groups? I hope they explain that in the show.”
Let's not forget, when we first met Rick and co. they were based just outside Atlanta, Georgia, and now they appear to be close to Washington, DC - that's over 600 miles by road, so they've only been near Negan's group for the last season or so, which only seems to be a few weeks at most, their time?
They had come across Negan's group before - Sasha, Abraham and Darryl were shot at by them early last season when they were driving, and then of course they later ran into another party of them, who met a nasty end thanks to Darryl's rocket launcher. Besides Jesus (and Rick and Darryl certainly ran into
him before they saw Hilltop), the Hilltop people don't seem particularly mobile, and the Kingdom people only seem to send certain people out (their 'knights' on horseback) – who Rick and Morgan, and later Carol, did indeed run into.