The Walking Dead – What Comes After

By: Kelly Kearney

Rick Grimes’ final episode was a dreamy apology tour through every one of the people he had wronged along the way. It was a truly epic goodbye to a character that was the glue that held this show together. Filled with cameos of characters we’ve loved and lost, followed by a shocking ending that nobody saw coming What Comes After answered the titular question: what does “The Walking Dead” look like now that our favorite Sheriff is gone?

WAKE UP!

Beginning with where we left off last week, Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln) still impaled on some rusty rebar while two herds of walkers are only footsteps away. While unconscious, he visits season one Rick in the Atlanta hospital, the day the world ended. It’s current old Rick vs. young Rick and as the sheriff stands over his lifeless body in the hospital bed, swarms of crows morph into an army of helicopters headed straight for downtown Atlanta. Hospital Rick comes to long enough to tell himself to “wake up” and it’s a good thing too because the walkers are hungry and quickly approaching. When he does open his eyes, he manages to pull himself off the rebar he was impaled on just in time to hop on his horse and find shelter in an abandoned shack.

The exhaustion from Rick’s injuries overcomes him and he falls unconscious, only to wake up in his patrol car with Shane (Jon Bernthal)! Rick, who feels guilty for how things ended with Shane, apologizes to his former best friend but not before Shane reminds him who gave him Judith. “How’s my baby girl, by the way,” he asks. Even in a hallucination Shane is the jerk we all loved to hate, but surprisingly, the two men have a friendly chat. Shane, who loves to brag and put Rick in his place, insists on taking credit for turning Grimes into the survivor he is today. The two men make peace, just as Shane turns into a zombie cuing us in that Rick is awake and about to be killed by walkers who invaded his hide out. Again, Rick is wily and manages to avoid certain death by punching through a wall in spite of his gruesome wounds and staggering pace. Outside his faithful horse (the one that threw him onto the rebar to begin with) is waiting to take it’s master out of harm’s way.

Maggie’s Payback

While Rick is fighting off walkers with a grapefruit sized hole in his side, Ann/Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) is letting her helicopter buddies know that she lost her “A,” but still wants to be rescued regardless of breaking their deal. Meanwhile, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) shows up at the gates of Alexandria to kill Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) once and for all. Michonne (Danai Gurira) tries to reason with her, but Maggie cannot be reasoned with even when Michonne asks, “Do you think Glenn would want you to go through me to get to him?” Maggie is not thinking clearly if she is willing to kill Michonne to get to get justice for Glenn, something she says Michonne would do too if Negan had killed Rick in that line up. There is no reasoning with Maggie so Michonne steps aside and lets the widow inside the man-made jail. What Maggie finds in the cell changes her entire outlook and her passion for vigilante justice. Holding a crowbar and seeing nothing even remotely ironic about what she is about to do, Maggie hands her enemy the keys and demands Negan exit the cell and get on his knees. At first, Negan tries taunting her about what he did to Glenn, which seems to be a bad move considering she is all about biblical, an eye for an eye, retribution.  Negan drops his bragging and leaves the cell on his knees. Crying, he begs Maggie to kill him ,so he can finally be with his wife Lucille. Maggie decides to let Negan live because he is in Hell anyway, death would be too good for him. This isn’t some softer side of Maggie as she still isn’t woke to Rick’s plans for a fair and functioning society, but the pain she sees in Negan is enough to satiate her thirst for vengeance. The bat swinging psychopath is a broken man and that’s enough for Maggie to say that Glenn’s murder is settled.

When Maggie leaves the cell, she runs into Michonne who notices the widow is not covered in blood. Before the two women can discuss what happened inside the jail, Dianne (Kerry Cahill) interrupts them to say that Rick is in trouble.

“It Feels Like The End”

Back to Rick the bloody man somehow manages to stay upright on his horse and lure the walker herd into a congregation behind him. It seems he’s headed for the bridge that was in danger of being washed away by the raging storm waters. It’s not long before he passes out again and dreams of the farm, more specifically the barn in Atlanta where Hershel (Scott Wilson) is waiting for him. Rick feels guilt over Hershel’s death, as well as what happened to Beth and Glenn. He’s sorry about how he stripped Maggie of her right to kill Negan and subsequently sending her on a warpath that broke up their little family. Hershel reminds Rick that his daughter is, “…strong and only getting stronger.” Rick keeps muttering about finding his family because, “it feels like the end,” but which family? Lori and Carl or Michonne and Judith? Hershel lets him know he doesn’t have to keep looking and the scene is heartfelt and heavy, especially considering Scott Wilson passed away shortly after filming. The barn quickly turns into a horrible landscape of corpses, some of which are Rick’s loved ones. Carol (Melissa McBride), Jesus (Tom Payne), Rosita (Christian Serratos), (stand ins for) Carl and Beth are all laying in piles of bodies for as far as Rick can see. Distraught, he climbs over heaps of dead family members until he sees Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) standing among them with a message about Rick’s role in all of this. She lets him know that he did his part, they all did, and the dead give them strength to do what has to be done. His loss pushes him forward and it makes him a better person and leader, it makes them all better. Rick, who spent the bulk of this episode talking to ghosts and searching for his family, finally understands that he is searching in the wrong place when Sasha lets him know his family isn’t among the dead. They’re not lost and “you’re not lost,” she says.

We Don’t Die

When Rick comes to he finds himself on the bridge surrounded by walkers. As the hungry zombies approach from both sides Daryl (Norman Reedus), Michonne and the others show up to save the day. Rick, who was ready to except his own fate and die, listens to Michonne when she reminds him to fight because “we don’t die.” It seems things are going in Rick’s favor when, SURPRISE, that was a hallucination, too! Rick comes out of his delirium long enough to realize he is, in fact, on the bridge and sandwiched between two walker herds and his wounds are not getting any better. With nowhere to go he reaches for his gun as he spots a box of dynamite that they planned on using during the bridge’s construction. He aims his gun at the box and that’s when his family does show up to save the day! Daryl takes off with his bow to stop the encroaching walkers and Michonne, Maggie and Carol start sprinting towards Rick. Rick motions to his loved ones to stop and leave him be, but they ignore him because, HELLO, this is Rick Grimes! The family loses their chance to save him when Rick smiles and pulls the trigger, hitting the dynamite and blowing the bridge, the walkers and himself sky high! Michonne buckles to the ground and starts screaming while Carol and Maggie try and hold her back from the explosion. Daryl, who has a similar reaction to his brother’s death, bursts into tears and walks off towards the woods alone. When the smoke clears, Ann is motioning the helicopter to her pick up when she spots Rick, very much alive, and laying on the banks of the river! She asks her mystery friends for help. After all, Rick helped her once and she would like to return the favor. Whoever these people are they agree to help and load a bloody and bewildered Rick into the chopper and take off above the bridge’s wreckage. Ann looks down at Rick, who is buckled into the chopper’s seat, and promises him that he will be ok. So, after weeks of teasers and leaked spoilers eluding to the end of Rick Grimes it seems the end did not come in death but a rescue from the Queen of the Trash People.

After the rescue, the story time jumps ahead six years and we meet a group of unfamiliar people led by a raven-haired woman named Magna (Nadia Hilker), who are fighting off a herd of walkers. The fight becomes chaotic until a sharp shooter takes each and every zombie out with a single shot and resuces the group. Wearing a cowboy hat and holding a pistol, we learn the sharp shooter is none other than 10-year-old Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming), who not only inherited her father’s hat but also his skills with a gun. She decides to take this group back to Alexandria to find out who they are, what they want and if they would be a good addition to their ever-growing community.

A time jump and a Rick rescue? Who are these new people and where was Ann taking Rick? Will we get to see how Michonne and the others handled Rick’s “death?” Do they even know he’s alive? What happens next is anyone’s guess, but according to Scott Gimple and the people at AMC, Rick’s story will continue in three films set for the big screen. Yes, that’s right fans, “The Walking Dead” is making its big break into film that will include Andrew Lincoln, as well as past and present characters that have yet to be announced. All in all, What Comes After was a nice way to say goodbye to a character that fans have loved for nine years, while simultaneously kicking off a reboot and a whole new story for our remaining characters. The Rick Grimes era might be over for now, but the story will go on in various platforms and films, for many years to come. I, for one, am thankful that this is not the end for our favorite sheriff, but instead a new and exciting beginning that will reinvigorate my love for this show.