Spoiler alert: The Walking Dead Season 9, Episode 5.
One of the most highly anticipated TV show departures of the decade finally aired on Sunday. Fan favorite Rick Grimes shocked everyone by departing the show alive. Instead of dying in the explosion as fans expected, the episode ended with him being picked up by a helicopter and being promised that he will survive.
This departure is made even more surprising by the fact that the show runners originally planned for Rick to die… a whole season earlier. Andrew Lincoln (who plays Rick in the series) revealed that his character was supposed to be killed off in season 8:
“There were many iterations [of Rick’s endgame]. A lot of it was down to the good people at AMC, who just said no, and they thought it would be an interesting and exciting proposition to expand rather than contract the show,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
“Realistically, this decision was all about time. For me to want to do a limited number of episodes [of The Walking Dead] a year wouldn’t feel like I was doing my job properly because playing this part has been so all-encompassing. I think I would get frustrated with that,” he explained.
“So the idea of being able to contain the story and still work just as hard and tell a different story in maybe a more expansive narrative way seemed very exciting to me.”
The Walking Dead airs on AMC every Sunday.
