The Walking Dead will end its much celebrated eleven season run on November 20 on AMC. There’s no doubt that fans worldwide will mourn the show’s conclusion. But true fans of the show know that the curtain fell on The Walking Dead after Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) committed one final act of heroism before he was choppered off at the end of Season 8. Sure, the show carried on for three more seasons that included a five-year time jump after Rick’s departure, but what he took with him when he left the horror phenomenon was irreplaceable. The void that was left by the group’s first and most natural leader proved to be too much for showrunner Angela Kang, who was dealt a bad hand by coming in on the heels of the losing the show’s most charismatic and compelling character. And though she did an admirable job of cobbling together pieces from a handful of supporting cast members to cover for the loss, no one was ever able to rise to the level of Lincoln’s turn as Grimes.
Grimes Commanded Respect From The Very Beginning
When Grimes left The Walking Dead, he took with him so much more than just the focal protagonist. He was the glue that held the group together. From Season 1 when he awoke from a coma to an apocalyptic world filled with walkers, he immediately showed a natural gravitas and strength that the show would rely on for the next eight seasons. In a world turned upside down, he was the steadying factor whenever the group faced long odds. He proved his merit early on when Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) challenged Rick for the mantle of the alpha dog. Rick’s even-keeled and level-headed response to adversity is what separated him from Shane, and the audience knew it right away. His restrained temperament would ultimately earn him the respect and garner him the support of the rest of the group as they struggled to find their footing in the wake of the end of the world as they knew it. After Rick’s departure, factions immediately started to form and the solidarity waned.
New Characters Acknowledge Him As The Leader
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As the group made their way out of Atlanta in the first several seasons, they started to find other survivors. In a world without rules, it required someone with a strong hand to discern who the group could trust and who they needed to steer clear of. Even going back to the second season, establishing a good-faith bond with characters like Maggie Greene (Lauren Cohan) and Herschel Greene (Scott Wilson) it was Rick who extended the olive branch and integrated the two groups. When the show added interlopers that would eventually become stalwarts like Michonne Hawthorne (Danai Gurira), Sasha Williams (Sonequa Martin-Green), and Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz), it was Rick who led in the vetting process and ultimately weighed the merit of their addition to the group. When he was no longer there, the cohesiveness and ad hoc judicial process became less thorough and led to further splintering among the group’s core and eventual newcomers.
Rick Was Trusted To Use An Iron Fist With Adversaries
When the group inevitably ran into those individuals with nefarious intentions, they could always count on their leader to represent them and draw the line with those that sought to overtake them. As ne’er-do-wells like Daryl Dixon’s (Norman Reedus) brother, Merle (Michael Rooker) Philip “The Governor” Blake (David Morrisey), and, of course, the barb-wired bat-wielding Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) came onto the scene with bad intentions, Rick drew the proverbial “line in the sand” and was the united face of the original group. When evil misfits emerged like the Wolves, the Saviors, and the cannibals at Terminus, it fell on his shoulders to determine how to deal with the show’s villains and he did so with unmatched courage and wisdom, preferring diplomacy to bloodshed. When they lost those qualities with Rick’s departure, the group struggled to delegate authority and present a galvanized front. They were much more susceptible to interlopers and infiltrators who had their own agendas and ulterior motives. When villains like Alpha (Samantha Morton) and Beta (Ryan Hurst) led the Whisperers assault on Alexandria in Season 10, their response was splintered and uncoordinated. The result was a deadly breach that cost many lives.
A Rock During The Good And The Bad
The very nature of The Walking Dead is an emotional roller-coaster. Through it all, Rick was the rock during the highs like the birth of baby Judith (Cailey Fleming) and the far too frequent lows like the grisly beating death of Glenn (Steven Yeun) at the hands of Negan and the loss of his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) during childbirth. The audience consistently looked to Rick for some sort of vicarious reconciliation. His menagerie of emotions took us on a ride, and we felt all the joy and the pain distilled through the performance of Andrew Lincoln’s nuanced and all-too-human portrayal of Rick Grimes. When he left, he took with him all those emotions that we had felt over nearly a decade and suddenly all that was left was a feeling of emptiness – not only in the show’s core, but in our cores of the viewing audience.
The Futile Attempts to Replace Rick
While we still were invested in fan-favorites like Daryl, Maggie, Carol, Michonne, and Morgan (Lennie James), it was far too great of a hole to fill after having taking the tumultuous ride with Rick for so long. Seasons 9-12 showrunner, Michelle Yang, was even able to get Lauren Cohan to return to the show in an effort to re-establish an alpha-type, take-charge kind of leader, but by that time the group had split and taken up in three different settings that included Alexandria, Hilltop and The Kingdom – which brought with it another attempt to replace Rick in King Ezekiel (Khary Payton). The schism proved to be too much for a singular leader. Through both the gravitas of Lincoln’s portrayal and the eventual division of the original group into three separate groups, the impact of losing the singular leadership of Rick Grimes left many of us longing for a return to the way it was. Back to a familiar place where we took a tremendous ten year thrill ride on the broad shoulders of Rick Grimes. When the show officially ends later this month, many of us will be just fine, as we went through the mourning phase of loss over three years ago when Rick flew away from The Walking Dead for good.
