Can The Walking Dead survive losing Andrew Lincoln? In case you have been living under a rock for the past 8 years, The Walking Dead is a hit TV show on the AMC network that follows former police officer Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) as he navigates through a world that has now become infested with flesh eating zombies.
The very first episode takes us through the series of events which carried Rick Grimes into this world where some mysterious infection has created actual zombies who rise from the dead and can only be killed by receiving a massive head injury by blunt force, gunshot, stabbing, or any other significant head injury rendering the zombie permanently deceased.
The entire story line is centered around Andrew Lincoln’s character, Rick Grimes. For 8 long years we, the viewers have witnessed Rick Grimes struggle with survival, reunite with his family, lose his wife and best friend, keep his children alive, and begrudgingly accept his role as leader of a group of zombie apocalypse survivors.
He reunites with his son Carl, played by Chandler Riggs, (who also just recently left the show) and for 8 years, we watch the two of them make friends, fight enemies and grow together as a father-son duo.
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You could almost hear the nation crying when Carl ended his life before the zombie infection could take over his body and the number of viewers of the series diminished. The series lost momentum 2 or 3 seasons ago and has since become stale.
It’s hard to continue a show about one man’s survival without that man, however The Walking Dead intends on banking on Norman Reedus’s fan popularity as the rugged Darryl as the new center of the storyline. This could be an absolutely brilliant plan, or it could be perceived as jumping the shark and the little audience the show has still maintained may turn their backs on The Walking Dead completely.
It seems that every season has had at least one major death, but we have no idea how we will loose Rick Grimes. We know that both Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohen (Maggie) will only be appearing in 6 episodes (each) of season 9, while Norman Reedus has negotiated a $20 million payday for himself to stay on as Darryl and continue the story. While it appears AMC and The Walking Dead intend to continue indefinitely, should they? Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.
The demise of the show really should be attributed to the villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) overstaying his welcome and dripping along the storyline for too many seasons.
In previous seasons, Rick Grimes and crew eventually overpowered whatever rival crew they were warring against and barely had time to breathe before getting introduced to yet another villainous group of morally corrupt survivors as each season progressed.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan did an incredible job portraying one of the best villains of all time, however the show doesn’t revolve around Negan nor has it ever centered on any of the previous villains. The show became stagnant and the other story lines muddled as we waited and waited for the Negan storyline to end.
New showrunner Angela Kang recently said to The Hollywood Reporter, “We’re working on a season that has a really fresh look and feel,” she said. “We come in on some pretty fun stuff. I’m really focusing a lot on the core character relationships in the show that have kind of been long-lasting, as well as all of our wonderful series regulars.”
Kang has been with The Walking Dead since season one, episode seven. In taking over for Gimple, she becomes the show’s fourth overall showrunner. Frank Darabont, the best showrunner to date, launched the series and was replaced by Glen Mazzara, with Gimple ultimately taking over.
For his part, Gimple was promoted to serve as chief content officer of all things The Walking Dead for AMC after creator Kirkman moved his overall deal to Amazon Studios.
This is all well and fine, but with Rick Grimes’s story has ended, how can the show go on without him?
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