Zombie Survival Crew

What Comes After:
Review for The Walking Dead 905
by R.C. Murphy

There’s spoilers in this review. Proceed with caution.

Well. Talk about something completely different. We’ve seen similar storytelling techniques from this production team before, but Rick’s trip back and forth from the Great Beyond or wherever to reality takes the surreal dream stuff to a whole new level. For what they wanted to do for Rick’s final season, it works wonderfully. It even gave them a reason to bring Shane back for a little bit. Jon Bernthal really grew into his acting skills during his time away. His couple minutes back in Shane’s shoes outshined some of his better moments from the first seasons.

All Rick’s visits with the dead are also more than a little heartbreaking.

BTS, Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Scott Wilson as Hershel Greene – The Walking Dead _ Season 9, Episode 5 – Photo Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

As many of you know, the world lost an amazing man, Scott Wilson, not that long ago. He’d opted to keep his illness a secret and worked until he couldn’t anymore. This appearance as Hershel is one of the last projects he worked on, despite the severity of the illness. For as fun as the Shane scene is for Jon’s performance, this final goodbye from Hershel, and Scott, is a hundred times as tragic. Not only is their conversation one of men who’ve suffered great losses, but it’s a secret final farewell no one knew they were witnessing while on set that day.

The majority of Rick’s visions take him back to the hospital where he woke from the coma. Oddly enough, his new wound is in a similar location as the gunshot that took him out before the undead rose. The visions do not, unfortunately, take him to his family as he hopes. I kinda hoped, too. But I think with the visitors we do get, it’s good. A visit from Carl and Glenn would have made it amazing, though. The episode would have felt more like a goodbye with that small tweak to the cameo lineup.

While Rick struggles to stay on his horse in order to draw the walkers to the bridge, Maggie uses her well-earned anger to march straight through Alexandria’s gates, past Michonne, and right into Negan’s cell. Says something about Maggie’s determination when not even Michonne can talk sense to her, doesn’t it? When faced with Maggie’s logic, Michonne can’t look her in the eye and tell her that she is wrong, that continuing with the insane eye-for-an-eye logic only leaves behind a world of suffering. No. Because if she were in Maggie’s shoes, if Negan were the one to put Carl in the ground? Negan would’ve been dead before sunset the following day, no matter what.

So now everything’s going Maggie’s way. She’s in the room with the man who murdered her husband. Does she follow through with her threat by bashing Negan’s skull in with a crowbar? Nah. Her attempts to grandstand and make herself feel good about the impending murder are undermined by Negan’s visceral reaction to the very idea of being freed from his prison. Sure, it’s the hard, painful way, but anyway is up when one has spent so much time in near solitude. At last Rick’s way of doing things makes sense to Maggie. I’m sure he’d be elated to hear she’s moved on from her murderous rage after all this time, but he’s too busy, ya know, bleeding out and occasionally dying while zombies shamble closer and closer.

The others eventually catch wind that something’s not right near the camp. It’s far too late to do any real good, though. Daryl’s plan to collapse the bridge with the undead doesn’t work, leaving Rick the only person between a horde and a free pass to the nearest community. Daryl keeps Rick alive from a distance long enough for Rick to hatch a dangerous plan. Using some mysteriously handy TNT, Rick shoots it and blows the bridge sky high. Flaming walkers pour into the rushing river below. Rick is nowhere to be seen.

Downstream, Anne’s rustbucket RV breaks down, leaving her no choice but to arrange the pickup from the helicopter right there, awfully close to the camp. The bridge explosion startles her. What washes down the river moments later is far scarier. Thankfully most of the walkers are dead or too damaged to go after her. There’s something else in the sea of scorched dead—hope. Switching her plan at the last moment, Anne pleads with the helicopter to take herself and one other, a “B” who is strong, but injured, and she owes him a debt. The last we see of Rick Grimes and Anne, they’re flying off in the well-equipped mystery helicopter.

To add yet another twist, instead of waiting an episode to do a time jump, the production uses Rick’s departure shot to rapidly age the landscape. Now it’s several years later and new survivors are in the field where the helicopter took off from. They’re in trouble. Yet they need not worry. A pint-sized hero lurks in the woods. And she’s got a pretty snazzy hat, too.

I look forward to Judith causing even more chaos than Carl. She’s totally the only sheriff they need in Alexandria.