Is Rick really the great leader fans think he is? Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

Rick and members of Alexandria, the Hilltop, and Kingdom may be on a mission to take out Negan and his Saviors on this season of “The Walking Dead,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the good guys.

“If you think about it, Rick himself is doing some pretty awful things,” Juan Gabriel Pareja, the actor behind Morales who just made a big return to the show, told INSIDER. “Right before he sees Morales, he brutally kills this guy, who, for all intents and purposes, is protecting his child, his daughter.”

Pareja certainly isn’t wrong. And it seems like Rick is slowly starting to realize this as well.

Almost immediately after he brutally kills that Savior, Rick is horrified to see he killed someone’s father. We then see him take a long look into a mirror above the child’s bed traumatized not only by what he’s done but, presumably, by what he’s becoming.

Rick seems unsure if he recognizes the man in the mirror anymore. AMC

As the eighth season of “The Walking Dead” continues, it’s easy to see several characters, including Tara and Morgan, are very conflicted with whether or not it’s OK to savagely kill every Savior in an act of vengeance. If you watch the first two episodes of the new season with that in mind, it makes you question whether they’re actually better than the Saviors.

Other than a few isolated incidents with Negan and his men, we haven’t seen them ruthlessly murder a group of people in the way we’ve seen Rick’s group do countless times to the Saviors. (The one exception is that we heard the Saviors were supposedly the ones who slaughtered all of the Oceanside men.)

“As we learn over the years in the world of ‘The Walking Dead’ morality isn’t so clear cut. It’s a lot of gray. It’s not as black and white,” said Pareja. “Often times in the name of doing good, supposedly, a lot of our heroes do some things that are very questionable, and sinister, and not so great.”

Related stories

‘House of the Dragon’ Blood actor says he was ‘totally up for’ his character experiencing ‘epic amounts of torture’ like in the book

‘Orphan Black: Echoes’ showrunner explains the spinoff’s biggest difference from the original series — and whether Tatiana Maslany will show up

Rick is a perfect example of that. He has had some ugly, scary moments throughout the series.

Season one Rick would never take pleasure in hurting other humans. AMC

We’ve seen him tear out a man’s throat with his own bare teeth to protect those he loves and brutally kill a group of cannibals in a church as his old pal Glenn watched on in horror. And let’s not forget Rick’s nervous breakdown in Alexandria when he pulled a gun on everyone chastising them for living in a fantasy world behind a walled community.

Yeah, this was not Rick’s greatest moment when he pulled a gun on the Alexandria community. AMC

Even as recent at the the season premiere, we see Rick take pleasure in photographing Negan in the same fashion that the Saviors captured their kills on camera.

“I don’t think Morales is any more guilty than Rick has been at different points throughout the seasons,” Pareja added. “I think that’s the interesting juxtaposition of seeing these two characters face off at this point. They both come on an interesting journey to that moment, and I’m sure both have had to do some not so wonderful things to arrive at that moment in one piece themselves.”

Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

The difference with Rick is that if you go back and rewatch all of “The Walking Dead” you’ll start to notice a pattern. Every time his crew stumbles upon a new community — Hershel’s farm, Woodbury, and Alexandria — something eventually goes wrong to flip the safe haven into a war zone riddled with death and zombies.

AMC, INSIDER composite by Kirsten Acuna

It makes you wonder if they would have been better off not crossing paths with Rick. And that maybe Rick’s the toxic person in the world of “The Walking Dead.”

Rick you have some figuring out to do. Gene Page/AMC