The long-awaited episode in a series of Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) final days had finally come on Sunday night. Although Rick’s last appearance will be in episode five, “What Comes After,” episode four, “The Obliged,” left us with a huge cliffhanger for our hero. After escaping multiple encounters of death by some ways of luck, it does not seem like Rick can find his way out of this.
We have seen the story of Rick Grimes unfold over nine seasons. For the fans, there needed to be some justification to the way Rick’s final days were worthy of something great. Kang wants people to understand how human Rick still is in this post-apocalyptic world. “In this story, we’re seeing things come to a head,” says Kang. “Rick has been really pushing this idea of the bridge, which is something that exemplifies the spirit of community and togetherness he believes that [his late son] Carl (Chandler Riggs) wanted. He’s been trying to pursue that. We wanted to put him in a situation that feels impossible. I always feel like you get great scenes out of Rick that way. He’s such a survivor, and he’s a survivor because he cares about other people. He cares about his family, he cares about his friends, and he will do anything he can to help them and to save them. You see him in the middle of a selfless act [at the end of the episode], and already he’s getting just completely screwed. It’s something that tells you about the kind of person he is. That’s the story we’ll be telling in his final episode of the show.”
Norman Reedus took to his Twitter account to post a brotherly homage to Lincoln.
Rick’s final episode will premiere on November 4 on AMC. In regards to the episode, Kang says, “It feels like a giant season finale dropped in the middle of the season.”