In times of peace, sons bury their fathers. But during war, fathers bury their sons. And on The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes was forced to bury his only son, Carl, in the aftermath of “Honor.”
It was a grim, harrowing scene by anyone’s standards, and as last night’s “Dead or Alive Or” proved, the loss of Chandler Riggs and his sprightly on-screen survivor continues to influence and shape The Walking Dead season 8. But what about his father?
As the war between Rick and Negan begins to escalate, many have theorized that Papa Grimes will be the next one to go – speculation that Robert Kirkman has quietly debunked, mind you – leading executive producer Greg Nicotero to chime in with his own thoughts on the ultimate fate of Rick Grimes.
Listen, you know, the show like we said, the show changes and the show evolves. The DNA of it is that story of survival and the story of the achievements and hardships people endure… I have no idea. I wish I did.
As history tells us, The Walking Dead TV series isn’t afraid to split from canon – Carl’s death; Michonne’s wayward family – but choosing to kill off Rick Grimes would surely have massive, and potentially irreversible, consequences for The Walking Dead, as a whole.
So while Kirkman is adamant that no one – and we really mean no one – is safe when it comes to the zombie apocalypse, it looks certain that Rick Grimes will live to fight another day…for now.
I always think that if and when the TV show deviates from the comic books, it’s always to better the story, not always to change the story. If we just did a panel for panel of the comic book it wouldn’t be very exciting because then everyone could say we’re up to this bit. So part of it is deviating from the graphic novel to serve our story and yeah, I think it’s safe to say that we embrace those detours and ultimately there are key moments that we want to pay tribute to and a lot of times they get reworked to fit our format.
The Walking Dead‘s eighth season continues this weekend with “The Key,” and you can feast your eyes on the first-look promo right here. Beyond that, it seems AMC has already set the ball in motion when it comes to the recently-announced season 9.
