Rick is gone for now, but he’s not gone for good as we take a massive jump into the future.
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Staff Writer
The Walking Dead: “What Comes After”
Season 9, Episode 5
Airdate: 11/04/2018
***SPOILERS INCOMING***
Rick Grimes lives.
In Andrew Lincoln’s final episode as a series regular, the former King County sheriff is presumed dead by his friends after he blows up the bridge he fought so hard to build. He does so as a sacrifice to save everyone in the various communities from being attacked by the massive herd of walkers heading straight towards them.
As I previously had predicted, an injured and unconscious Rick is found by Jadis and taken away by the helicopter. It’s still unknown where the helicopter leads, or what constitutes being an “A” or “B” (apparently, Rick is a “B” all of a sudden, which is weird). Perhaps we’ll never know, especially if Andrew Lincoln never again makes an appearance on this show. Or perhaps we will find out, just not on this show. More on that in a moment.
I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead, though. As Madison Clark said this last season on Fear The Walking Dead, “no one’s gone until they’re gone.” I do think we’ve seen the last of Rick for a long time.
On the Talking Dead aftershow, Scott Gimple said that Rick’s story will continue, in a series of AMC-produced films. Details are scarce on how exactly that will unfold, but I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’d much rather see Rick reunite with his group down the line. Perhaps in the show’s last season, Rick can return in a way that was similar to that of Morgan Jones during the show’s fifth season: we see him trekking across the countryside, making his way back to Alexandria after his adventures away. Whatever the show’s endgame is, if he’s alive he should be included in it in some way.
Also in this episode, Maggie finally confronts Negan. In a scene reminiscent of a recent comic issue of the series, Maggie changes her tune on ending Negan’s life. Making her way to Alexandria with the full intention to kill him, she instead decides to let him live. That’s because living in his current predicament is exactly what Negan does not want. He wants to die. He wants to be with his deceased wife, Lucille. He riles Maggie up, trying to get her to end his life. But she doesn’t take the bait. Not because of anything Rick said or did. But because she had come to a rather cathartic realization.
In a way, Negan being reduced to nothing more than a tortured, pathetic mess and being left to rot in a cell is a more brutal punishment than death. Death would bring him peace. Death would reunite him with the person he loved the most. In Maggie’s eyes, that is something that she does not want to happen. Negan doesn’t deserve that peace of mind. Not after what he did to her, and what he did to her husband Glenn. By leaving him to suffer in his cell, Maggie is truly punishing Negan by forcing him to live with the person that he became, and the things that he did. It may not be what some fans want, but it makes sense, and it’s fitting.
The closing moments of the episode take a massive jump into the future. A new group, seemingly led by a woman named Magna, find themselves in a precarious situation in the same clearing where Rick was taken away. When it looks like they are about to be overwhelmed, they are saved by a little girl… a little girl who is revealed to be Judith Grimes. She’s all grown up, talking in full sentences, and holstering a gun.
The world of The Walking Dead has irrevocably changed.
SCATTERED THOUGHTS:
– The Charlotte skyline last week was indeed a production error. How does something like that happen?
– Jadis was definitely driving the RV that Heath disappeared in during Season 7, so even if we never get confirmation on what happened to Heath, I think we can put two-and-two together. Perhaps we’ll see him in one of those movies.
– I’m really sad to see her go, however. Pollyanna McIntosh’s character has really grown on me over the last season or so. She will be missed as well, at least by me. She’ll probably be appearing in one of those movies, though.
– Rick is a better man than me. I would have totally let the walkers devour that horse after it almost got me killed. I guess he kind of needed it with the herd coming and all, but still.
– And the horse abandoned him after he was done hallucinating. Wow horse, you suck.
– Shane was back on screen, and I thought it was great. That is all.
– It was great seeing Hershel (and Scott Wilson) on screen one last time. But it is sad that because of Wilson’s death, we’ll never get to see him again on-screen with Maggie.
– Why was Sasha here again? It feels like Scott Gimple personally wrote her dialogue.
– While I’m on the subject of Gimple, I see that the former showrunner had a hand in crafting the story for this episode. The episode was far from bad, but his name is mud now, as far as I’m concerned.
– With the time jump at the end, I guess that erases any chance of a Fear The Walking Dead crossover anytime soon.
– I guess that Carol’s troops won the shoot-out from the previous episode, judging from the empty camp.
– It really flew under the radar, but according to showrunner Angela Kang, this was also Lauren Cohan’s last episode, at least for the time being. I hope we get to see Maggie again as well.
– When “Space Junk” by Wang Chung started playing near the end of the episode, I had a wide smile on my face. What a fantastic nod to the show’s pilot episode.
