Rick Grimes is a man fast approaching the end of his tether.
Since hobbling out of Harrison Memorial Hospital all those years ago, Andrew Lincoln’s jaded lead has lost his wife and only son to the zombie apocalypse, leaving him a broken, bitter shell of his former self.
So it should come as no surprise that Lincoln and The Walking Dead are about to go their separate ways, after it was revealed that his Rick Grimes will appear in only six episodes of the upcoming season. In doing so, he’ll hand over leading man duties to Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), while AMC has since confirmed that Jon Bernthal’s Shane Walsh will be returning for one very special episode – Andrew Lincoln’s last, perhaps?
But when news broke that AMC’s flagship was ready to continue on without Rick in the driving seat, former Walking Dead star Chandler Riggs was floored, and told ComicBook.com that he was taken aback by the decision.
Of course, yeah. I mean, Andy has been on the show for so long and he’s had to leave his family every single year, so I was surprised, but at the same time, it’s gonna be good for him to get back to his family and raise his kids.
Granted, he hasn’t spoken with Andrew Lincoln in months, but it’s pretty clear that Riggs still holds The Walking Dead and its ensemble cast in high regard. And that’s despite exiting the series in dramatic fashion earlier this year.
Meanwhile, season 9 of The Walking Dead is tentatively on course for an October premiere on AMC, and it’ll seemingly devote more airtime to the Richonne romance that first flickered into life during season 6.