After nearly ten years, The Walking Dead universe is expanding in big ways. We’ve already seen one spin-off with Fear The Walking Dead and after the departure of the flagship show’s lead character Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) in Season 9, AMC announced that Lincoln would appear as Rick Grimes in three TV movies.
In addition to a lot of talk by the show’s crew that they have seemingly endless ideas for spinoffs and Digital content, the announcement that the world isn’t going to forget Rick Grimes was music to the ears of many fans.
There are quite a few reasons that Andrew Lincoln’s character deserves these movies. Not the least of which is that for eight and half seasons, Rick Grimes drove the narrative of one of the most popular shows in TV history more so than any other one character. But that’s not the only reason Rick Grimes absolutely deserves spinoff movies...
Rick Grimes Has Unfinished Business In The World
Season 9 began in the aftermath of Rick Grimes’ son Carl dying after a bite from a walker. It was a very sad moment for the characters and the actors who play them, not to mention the fans, to say goodbye to one of The Walking Dead's original characters. Carl, who was played by Chandler Riggs since the first episode of the show aired, was the main driving force behind almost all of Rick’s actions. Everything he did, he did for his family, especially for his son Carl.
With Carl gone, Rick was a little lost, but he never lost his will to live and to protect both the survivors in Alexandria and his daughter, Judith. Rick Grimes' final episode, Episode 5 of Season 9, was a testament to this. A severely wounded Rick, fading in and out of consciousness, attempted to drive a herd of walkers away, eventually blowing them up, along with the bridge the survivors were building, and seemingly, himself.
Of course, he didn’t die, he was rescued by Jadis (a.k.a. Anne) and a mysterious, previously unknown group that airlifted him out of the area to an unknown location. The survivors, including Michonne and Darryl, don’t know this though and assumed he was killed in the explosion. They’ve spent considerable time looking for his body downstream from the destroyed bridge.
As he was struggling to lead the herd, he had a number of lucid dreams in which he had conversations with dead characters from the past, all telling him to stay alive, to save his family and protect the other survivors. When he reached the bridges, he saw Michonne and realized he has found his family, they were with him all along, and that he must protect them by sacrificing himself.
For Rick Grimes, protecting his family will always be unfinished business. Carl is gone and his wife Lori has been gone a long time, but Judith is alive, as is Michonne and now his son, Rick, Jr. is also surviving in the world. For Rick, these are his reasons for living and why he must go on. Judith deserves to meet her father, her role model, again, and Rick deserves to meet his son. We don’t know where Rick is, but we can assume he is there against his will, as he would never want to be apart from his family like this. We need to know why he can’t get to them. Who is it that is keeping him from them and how are they doing it?
Rick Grimes Deserves To Find Peace
Since the show began, since Rick Grimes first woke up in that hospital all those years ago, he has been a leader. That burden of leadership has been difficult and stressful. Right up until what he thought was going to be the end, when he sacrificed himself on that bridge, that burden has weighed heavily on his shoulders and he deserves a chance to rest, to remove that burden, at least for a little bit.
A few times throughout the show, viewers caught glimpses of how a peaceful future could have worked out for Rick and his family, but he never got there. He deserves to finally get there. After all he has been through, from Lori dying to Carl dying and that unrelenting weight he was under as he was responsible for the safety of hundreds of people over the years, it would be only right for him to find some peace, finally. Could he have found relief with the helicopter group? It seems unlikely without his family, but maybe that’s why he can’t return, which brings us right back to my first point.
Rick Grimes Is Simply One Of The Best Characters In Television History
This may be a hot take, but despite the memes and the cries of “CORAL,” Rick Grimes is simply a fantastic character and everyone should want to see how his story plays out further.
In a show that is famous for his cliffhangers, there has been no bigger one than Rick getting carried off by the helicopter with Pollyanna McIntosh's Jadis promising to save him. Who was behind the rescue? Was it really a kidnapping? Where have they taken Rick? These are all questions we NEED answers to.
The biggest question though, is again: Where has Rick been for the last six years? In a great move by the show, after losing a driving force like Rick Grimes, the creative team jumped ahead in the story by six years. It was smart to “reset” like The Walking Dead, as Andrew Lincoln isn’t coming back, so they needed to move on. But it does leave the dangling question - what has Rick been up to for the last six years? Or maybe, what has been done to Rick in the last six years by the mysterious helicopter people? Is there a tie-in with Fear The Walking Dead? These are all questions to which fans need answers.
For fans of The Walking Dead, the news of three possible movies featuring Rick Grimes is not just tantalizing, it feels absolutely necessary. Everyone needs more Rick Grimes in their lives, and we know that we will likely get a lot more.
