It is legitimately strange that nobody from the group has questioned Rick’s leadership long enough to supplant him with someone else. If there is one constant to The Walking Dead outside of its endless zombie hordes, it’s that Rick Grimes likes to come up with a plan, and more often than not that plan is disastrous. You see, Rick is going to die because of a really stupid plan he hatched. In the pilot, we watched Rick stumble out of a coma into a desolate world with confusing signage like “DON’T DEAD, OPEN INSIDE.” From there, Rick has experienced about everything you’d expect from a fully realized zombie apocalypse: He’s fought and killed countless walkers, lost loved ones, forged inseparable bonds with fellow survivors, and even ripped out a dude’s throat with his mouth when his son was threatened (it was gnarly).īut after the fourth episode of Season 9, “The Obliged,” Rick has reached the end of the road, and with a cruel, ironic twist of fate at that. We’ve followed Rick, played by Andrew Lincoln, for nine seasons, over 100 episodes, and countless mumble-growls about stuff and thangs. For longtime (and arguably long-suffering) Walking Dead fans like myself, it’s a shocking turn of events. On Sunday night, the unthinkable is happening: Rick Grimes is exiting The Walking Dead.