Do You Want to See Rick Return in ‘The Walking Dead’s Final Season? (POLL)

Meredith Jacobs August 23, 2021, 11:30 am

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead — Gene Page/AMC

If The Walking Dead fans are going to see Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in the show’s current eleventh and final season, it seems like it’ll be in a surprise appearance.

Whether or not Lincoln will return “is one question that I cannot get into,” showrunner Angela Kang told Deadline. And while not answering may seem like an answer, “it really, truly doesn’t mean one thing or another,” she insisted. “There’s other things happening in the franchise. There is universe implication.”

That goes back to everything we know about Rick’s exit, what was announced after, and what’s happened across all the shows since. Rick was last seen in Season 9’s “What Comes After,” when he seemingly blew himself up along with walkers on a bridge. But, as viewers saw, he was rescued by the then-mysterious helicopter group, now known to be the Civil Republic Military (CRM). That group has since appeared on the two spinoffs, Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

After Lincoln’s exit from the AMC drama, it was announced that he would play Rick Grimes again — in a series of movies. Since then, we haven’t really heard much about those films, even though they are reportedly still happening (and Danai Gurira’s Michonne exited in such a way that she could appear alongside Rick in them).

But with The Walking Dead in its final episodes (23 are left), might it be used as a launching pad for those movies? It certainly seems possible, and there’s something that just seems so right about seeing Lincoln back on the show that introduced him, especially considering we met the world of walkers through him. However, an appearance from Rick doesn’t have to be tied to his present or future situation. In his final episode, while he was severely injured, Rick saw dead characters (including Jon Bernthal’s Shane and Scott Wilson’s Hershel). Who’s to say that something similar can’t happen for another character? They are pretty much always in life-threatening situations.

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Or would The Walking Dead be better off not bringing back Rick? There have been quite a few changes since his last episode, and maybe in this final season, the focus should be on looking forward not back.

But what do you think? Vote in our poll below.

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