Review of Rick Grimes' Final Episode

After eight years, nine seasons, and 120 episodes, Rick Grimes' story has come to an end.

In May of 2018, rumors arose that season nine of The Walking Dead would be Andrew Lincoln's last season as Rick Grimes. In July, those rumors were confirmed.

This resulted in a lot of upset fans who threatened to stop watching the show once Rick left. This is not a good status for the show as fans were already upset about Carl's recent death in the past season.

In the last episode of The Walking Dead, Rick was attempting to distract a group of walkers away from the recently built bridge. He is soon surrounded by zombies and he is thrown off his horse onto a metal rod.

This episode starts with a hallucinating Rick trying to wake up season one Rick in the hospital. Then, the tables are turned and season one Rick wakes up current Rick to a horde of zombies coming his way. Rick struggles to release himself the pole that pierced him. Once he finally does, he weakly crawly towards his horse and begins to run away.

While running, Rick loses consciousness and we see short glimpses of the show's past, including the Greene's farm, Rick's hospital room, and more.

Rick finds shelter in an abandoned house and begins to tend to his wound.

Rick starts to have another hallucination and he comes across Joh Bernthal as Shane. Rick and Shane sit and eat at the crash site where Rick was shot.

They eat burgers and talk about the past and current state of Rick's life. Shane brings up that Judith has his eyes, implying once again that Judith is Shane's child.

This chemistry between Lincoln and Bernthal is really nice to have back. It makes me miss the first two seasons of the show and I'm glad Shane was able to come back for one last appearance.

Shane brings up a great point and tells Rick that he is who he is because of Shane.

"I'm sure others did influence you, but I'd like to take full credit," Shane says to Rick. Shane then brings up Rick's closet of horrors, including the massacre in Gabriel's church and Rick tearing apart a man's throat with his teeth.

Shane tells Rick that the only way he will get back to Michonne and Judith is if he brings out that inner monster.

The green screen in this hallucination scene is horrendous, but just seeing these two characters back together on the screen makes me forget about it.

The scene comes to a sudden end as Rick is woken up by the herd of zombies crashing through his shelter. Rick crawls on his horse and continues to run.

Meanwhile, Anne is on her way to meet the mysterious group who are awaiting her human sacrifice and Maggie is still making her way towards Alexandria to kill Negan.

Maggie finally arrives at Alexandria and is confronted by Michonne as she tries to kill Negan. Michonne and Maggie talk for a bit and have the exact same argument about killing Negan that has been had for the past five episodes.

These scenes are especially pointless in this episode and are just there to remind the audience what is going on.

The problem with The Walking Dead is that these scenes take up most of the show.

Surprisingly, Michonne just hands over the keys to Maggie even though Rick wouldn't have wanted that at all. It could be argued that Michonne knows Maggie won't kill Negan, but it still is a pretty stupid decision.

Maggie and Negan have their long-awaited encounter. Negan talks smoothly and keep it cool as always. He tries to intimidate Maggie and get her angry. Maggie then has a realization and realizes that Negan wants to be killed. She then turns the table and tries to intimidate Negan. Maggie gets Negan to admit that he attempted suicide and wants to die so he can be with his wife.

Deciding that keeping Negan alive is a worse punishment for him, Maggie spares his life. This was supposed to be an emotional scene but seeing Negan acting to stupidly and weak was annoying.

Negan also had unnatural dialogue and the corny background music halted the scene to an emotional stop.

The show switches back to Rick and he begins to have another hallucination. This time, Rick is back at the Greene farm with Scott Wilson himself as Hershel Greene. The green screen still awful, but once again it doesn't matter because the guest star steals the scene.

Hershel tells Rick that his time is not up and Rick's hallucination switches to the hospital from season one.

We see the iconic door labeled "Don't open, dead inside". Rick opens the door despite the warning and walks out into a field of dead bodies. These bodies included current and past characters and it was really cool to watch.

This was heavily influenced by a variant art cover of  Skybound's The Walking Dead Issue #100.

Another guest star is introduced and this time it is Sonequa Martin-Green as Sasha Williams!

Sasha helped Rick realize that he did what he had to do to save himself and his friends. Sasha shows Rick that he has good intentions and isn't a bad person for the actions he took to survive. Rick wakes up right as he falls off of his horse, and he is not in good condition. In horror, he realizes that the camp has been overrun and members of his group have died.

Rick is then saved by Michonne, Daryl, and others. Michonne reminds Rick they don't die and that he is a strong fighter who never gives up. He looks up at his friends and we are given a glimpse of hope that is soon taken away.

Rick's was just hallucination his rescue, and he is still on the bridge alone and surrounded by zombies. Rick uses the last of his strength to make it across the bridge so he can destroy the bridge, therefore stopping the massive herd from reaching Alexandria.

Although Rick didn't get to say goodbye to his friends in real life, the audience got a little closure from the fake hallucination.

Rick is alone on the other side of the bridge as his friends desperately try to fight hundreds of walkers to save him.

Realizing his community was in danger and his friends were about to die to save him, Rick takes out his iconic weapon in an attempt to blow up the bridge with dynamite.

Rick lines up his last shot with his stainless steel .357 magnum Colt Python. Rick destroys the bridge, killing himself in the process.

Or so we thought.

But seeing as this is Rick Grimes' last appearance on the show, I will treat it as the end.

Rick's arc was well summed up in this episode. His goodbyes got a little repetitive, but the audience got the general message that Rick did what he needed to do to survive.

He might not have been proud of everything he's done, but he has fought to protect his family. In the first season, his journey begins with him looking for his family. In the last episode, he realizes he has found a new family in a new world.

However, Rick may never see his family again. Instead of dying like everyone thought he would, Rick survived the explosion and was kidnapped by Anne. Anne "rescues" Rick and he is taken aboard a helicopter to an unknown location.

We then are introduced to a group of new characters and it is revealed that the show will be undergoing a huge time jump!

This may be the kick that The Walking Dead needs to stay relevant after the loss of the show's main character.

The plans for the continuation of Rick Grimes' story is certainly interesting and ambiguous, but I'm not sure it will keep fans watching the show.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with Rick's final episode. I loved seeing past characters and exploring the entirety of Rick's story before he says goodbye to the show.

I give this episode an 8/10.

It's an improvement compared to the other episodes in this season, but it still had all the typical flaws of an episode of The Walking Dead.

Maybe with all the new changes coming, the show will start to learn from its mistakes.