The Walking Dead: Say hello to the bad guy, his name is Rick Grimes

While you may think Negan is the worst villain this side of Joffrey Baratheon or Ramsey Bolton from Game of Thrones, the biggest bad guy on The Walking Dead is actually Rick.

Rick Grimes was the hero of The Walking Dead, but he’s not anymore. In fact, he may be the show’s new villain.

Move over Negan, make way for Rick to step into your shoes as the big bad. Rick isn’t entirely the bad guy. He has his reasons and motives for everything he’s done. He’s not evil in the sense that other villains, such as Joffrey and Ramsey from Game of Thrones or Gus Fring on The Walking Dead. However, Rick is totally different from the character that first won us over for his heroism.

Rick is grieving the loss of his son, Carl, so we take this with a grain of salt because he’s not fully himself right now. The last thing Carl said to his dad was he thought he could end this war between Negan. No one else had to die and he could bridge the divide between the two groups of people.

Carl wanted Rick to fight for peace.

But Rick is not living by his son’s wishes he had on his deathbed.

Rick had a chance to bring back the escaped prisoners from Hilltop and he did offer them a deal before the walkers interrupted. After Morgan told them he was going to kill all of them, the walkers broke in the open door and they had to fight off the walkers to survive.

And after that threat was neutralized, Rick had a choice. He could have laid down his weapons and brought everyone back to Hilltop. To fight and live together. But instead of abiding by his dead son’s wishes, he chucked an axe at one of their throats and left the guy bleed out.

It didn’t have to be that way, Rick.

Why did you go and do that?

Is this his anger coming out over the loss of Carl? Perhaps.

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Morgan tells Rick that he saved Rick back when they met in season 1 because his son was there. He wanted to be a good man in front of his son. He wanted his son’s respect. He wanted to be an honorable man for him. But Rick doesn’t have Carl anymore and I fear he has no reason to save people anymore.

Rick is only beginning to mourn the loss of Carl after he read the letter he wrote for him after he killed those men, but I fear he’s too far gone and he’s very much a bad person.

He can be saved. He has the love of Michonne and a number of people who care and respect him, but it’s not going to be in season 8, and if he survives deep into season 9 and 10, then I think we’ll see if Rick can go from bad guy to hero again.

I’m definitely rooting for that to happen.