The Walking Dead said goodbye to another longtime vet with its most recent episode, as Danai Gurira made her (for now) final TV appearance. While the future is now up in the air for the beloved character, Gurira is currently the recipient of many heartfelt messages from fans and co-stars. Even Andrew Lincoln himself got in on the fun.
As shared by the official Walking Dead Instagram, Andrew Lincoln sat at his piano and recorded a short video for the actress, complete with a sweet song parody and a story about their first Walking Dead interaction. Check it out!
Considering Rick Grimes was such a Southern boy, it's kind of hilarious that the farewell video to Danai Gurira was so perfectly British. The song he went with was a quick and personal parody of The Beatles "Live and Let Die," with the lyrics changed to "We love you, Danai." Also acceptable: "While My Katana Gently Weeps," "I Am the Wal(rus)king Dead," "Andrew In the Sky with Danai, Mon" and... Well, okay, none of those would be acceptable.
For those who weren't able to watch, Andrew Lincoln follows up his piano playing not with that killer guitar riff from "Live and Let Die," but with an anecdote that ends rather amusingly (and suddenly).
We love you, Danai. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. What a thing. I remember the first time I met you, you were fainted. You’d collapsed outside the gates of the prison. Ricky Doo-dah Grimes and his son... I thought you were a maniac with katana swords, but my son Carl thought that we should save you. So I ran out, and the whole of production insisted that I didn’t pick you up, that the scene would finish just as I got you into a fireman’s lift. Oh no.
Though Michonne was first introduced on The Walking Dead at the tail end of Season 2, Danai Gurira didn't get to share screentime with Andrew Lincoln until Season 3, and things immediately took a turn from the comics at that point. Michonne had saved Andrea's life – a moment that got reversed in Gurira's final episode – and joined up with Team Family, setting the path to a Richonne romance that never went down in the source material. Meanwhile, Andrea ended up getting into a baffling romance with The Governor, only to later be killed off, even though Rick and Andrea were the comic's core coupling (beyond Maggie and Glenn, of course).
Without getting into spoilers, it's safe to say that Danai Gurira's last ride on The Walking Dead was worthy of the actress' excellence, and took the story to some wild places that only make the future look more exciting and hopeful. Now let's just hope Andrew Lincoln can convince Scott Gimple to let him sing some Beatles tunes in the Walking Dead movies that are coming.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET, though Season 10 will be cut short, due to the season finale's post-production being unable to move forward during the coronavirus outbreak. Read more on that here.
