The Walking Dead: What happened to Rick Grimes?

With Rick Grimes set to return in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, here’s everything you need to know about what the zombie-fighting police officer was up to when we last saw him.

There would be no The Walking Dead without Rick Grimes. Both the graphic novel and the hit series began in earnest with him awakening from a coma, only to find the world he knew completely ravaged by a zombie virus. (Let’s be honest, this is how all the best zombie adventures start, right?)

For nine straight seasons, Andrew Lincoln led the cast as Rick, becoming the reluctant leader of a lost and troubled group of survivors.

Now a new spin-off series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, will see Rick return alongside his on-screen wife, Michonne. Fans might need a refresher on what happened the last time he was on the main show, so here’s what you need to know about how the series left him.

What happened to Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead?

Rick Grimes famously “died” in The Walking Dead Season 9, but he miraculously returned in the show’s final episode.

In Season 9 Episode 5, ‘What Comes After’, it was suggested that Rick Grimes met his demise. Well, it wasn’t really a suggestion — he literally exploded. Rick’s death was a heroic one, as he sacrificed himself to save his friends and family by blowing up a hoard of zombies on a bridge.

As far as the rest of the characters were concerned, Rick was a goner. But viewers were later shown that he was actually rescued by Jadis and a helicopter that belonged to the Civic Republic Military.

At this point, Andrew Lincoln left the series to spend more time with his real-life family. As a result, The Walking Dead through to Season 11 was led by other characters, with Norman Reedus taking the reigns as Daryl Dixon. Rick did return, however.

Rick’s return to The Walking Dead

In the last moments of The Walking Dead’s final episode, Rick is alive and well.

About as “well” as one could be in a zombie apocalypse, anyway. He appears briefly in the Season 11 finale, wandering around wearing a Civic Republic Military jacket and ditching his boots, a letter to Michonne, and a phone. (In Season 10, Michonne finds them and she decides to try to track him down, at last believing he’s alive.) A voice from above then tells Rick to surrender, and a helicopter descends upon him.

So, as the finale suggests, Rick and Michonne are currently searching for each other. It’s not entirely clear what happened to Rick during his time with Civic Republic Military, but it probably wasn’t completely voluntary.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is set to be a love story at heart. It’ll also likely establish exactly what happened to Rick during his time away from the main series, and explore Michonne’s journey to finding him again.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will premiere on AMC on February 25, 2024.