It’s an immediate reminder of one of the show’s most frustrating decisions of all time: making fans believe Glenn had died, only to reveal weeks later that he had miraculously survived-before actually offing him just a few more weeks later. Rick’s salvation is both cowardly and manipulative. But as they fly off into the sunset, it’s hard not to feel at least a little, if not very, annoyed. Whatever any of this means, it was enough to get Rick and Anne both on the chopper. ![]() It’s still unclear who or what the chopper is associated with-but whoever they are, Anne secured her evacuation by promising them that she had an “A.” That was a lie-but thankfully for Anne, Rick is apparently a “B,” as Anne told the people flying the helicopter. Anne (née Jadis) found Rick injured in a ravine, just as she was waiting for a chopper to evacuate her. However! Rather than let Rick die, The Walking Dead has decided to keep him alive-sort of. Michonne, Daryl, and the gang showed up just in time to witness his final act of heroism: to stop the horde from overrunning the communities, Rick fired his gun at some dynamite left on the construction site, blowing up the bridge, the walkers slowly crossing it, and himself. Rick spent pretty much the entire episode on the brink of death-so it was no surprise when, toward the end, he found himself standing on the nearly completed bridge, exhausted, as the horde finally caught up to him. But for all of his dazed soul-searching, Rick never does see his late wife, Lori ( Sarah Wayne Callies), or his dead son, Carl ( Chandler Riggs)-and although the episode half-heartedly waves the characters’ absence away, their presence would have provided more grounded, emotional resonance in an installment that direly needed it. All of the loved ones Rick saw guided him as he tried to find his family-and reconcile what has become of this apocalyptic world and the role he’s played in it. Jon Bernthal returned as Shane, to re-stage a conversation they shared over cheeseburgers in the series premiere Scott Wilson, who passed away last month, returned as Hershel and Sonequa Martin-Green turned up to reprise her role as Sasha-who gave Rick a pep talk on a sea of dead bodies. ![]() ![]() Rick managed to pry himself free from the rebar that stabbed through him, but thanks to the blood loss he spent his entire journey home hallucinating his loved ones, dead and alive-but mostly dead. Well, in truth he was mostly trudging and sitting on a horse, thanks to that nasty impalement he suffered last week. Our fearless, scruffy leader spent pretty much all of Sunday’s installment on the run from a giant horde of zombies. Truthfully, it’s hard to think of a fate more appropriate for the lead of a series that squandered all of its meaning for contrived storytelling a long time ago-but given the promise of those early episodes, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed. Instead, he will live on as a manipulative cliff-hanger. ![]() Rick, it turns out, will not die-at least, probably not. Unfortunately, it appears now that the series still has yet to learn from its worst mistakes-because on Sunday night, Rick Grimes’s widely advertised final episode ended with a twist that was somehow equal parts infuriating and unsurprising. Plots were moving, Negan’s presence was relatively minimal, and key characters and relationships were finally re-discovered. Yes, this season’s early episodes showed promise it seemed, for a moment, that the series might have found its way out of the woods in which it’s been aimlessly shambling for the past couple seasons. Honestly, we probably should have seen this coming. So in other words, Rick’s non-death on Sunday night was not a cliff-hanger, but instead, a bait and switch designed to make the film’s announcement as impactful as possible. Update: Turns out, Rick is headed into a new life on the big screen, as AMC prepares to launch multiple Walking Dead films. This post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 9, Episode 5, “What Comes After.”
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