Warning! This article contains spoilers from the season finale of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

Highlights

• The Walking Dead finally fulfills its promise by showing Rick Grimes' impact on the post-apocalyptic world in the spinoff "The Ones Who Live."
• The spinoff reveals how Rick and Michonne battle the CRM to prevent their evil plan from dominating the new world, showcasing Rick's heroism on a larger scale.
• The possibility of a second season for the spinoff is uncertain, but the story of Rick Grimes finds a satisfying conclusion.

In season 5 of The Walking Dead, the apocalyptic horror drama made the bold statement by declaring that "the new world's gonna need Rick Grimes." This promise was believed to be unfulfilled when Rick Grimes sacrificed himself in The Walking Dead season 9, but it did predict upcoming spinoffs.

This prediction of the zombie TV franchise's end would take six years to arrive, with The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live finally revealing Rick Grimes' fate as a soldier in the Civic Republic Military. Rick has always been a hero in TWD, but in this spinoff, he finally has a chance to make a difference to the whole world rather than his small community of survivors.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is a love story about Rick and Michonne battling in the post-apocalyptic landscape. It follows on from the pair's exit in seasons 9 and 10 and finally showcases Rick's capabilities. It's the sixth spinoff in the zombie franchise. The Ones Who Live finale saw them taking on the CRM and taking them down before their evil plan could threaten the entire world.

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In the following, we take a look at how The Walking Dead already told us how they would end the franchise and why Rick Grimes' return was inevitable. We also talk about whether there will be a season 2 for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

The Walking Dead Told Us In Season 5 'The New World Is Going To Need Rick Grimes'

Back in The Walking Dead season 5, Abraham declared that "the new world's gonna need Rick Grimes." He wasn't alone in this belief, many others felt Rick Grimes was the future of the human race.

Despite being a lead character in the AMC show, Rick was a local hero in the story of a worldwide zombie outbreak. He led an attack on Terminus, waged war on the Sanctuary, and fended off the wolves, but these actions had little effect on the "new world." This promise was cut short when Rick mysteriously exited the show four seasons later.

The franchise finally resolved this detail in The Ones Who Lived, where Rick can finally act in a way that helps the big scheme of things. Rick and Michonne taking down the CRM will directly shape the "new world" of The Walking Dead. The seeds of this prediction coming true started early in the season when General Beale revealed humanity could only survive for 14 years in the apocalyptic post-zombie outbreak landscape.

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When Rick becomes aware of this harrowing prophecy, he realizes he needs to pull together his resources from the Civic Republic and Commonwealth and prove Abraham's Walking Dead season 5 prophecy right and Beale wrong.

It's revealed in the spinoff that the CRM was plotting to control the United States by wiping out the other communities. The organization had a villainous 500-year plan to plant agents in foreign countries and not just control the USA, but dominate the whole world. The finale of The Ones Who Live sees Rick and Michonne defeating the CRM forces and stopping the tyrannical regime from taking over the "new world," finally proving why the world needed Rick Grimes.

Andrew Lincoln's Return To The Walking Dead Was Inevitable

Although AMC promoted The Walking Dead season 9, episode 5, “What Comes After” as “Rick Grimes’ final episode,” his return to the franchise felt unavoidable.

In the world of TWD, the last episode usually means the character suffers a gruesome death. Rick doesn't die in this episode, although he does come close after being blown off a bridge. Jadis discovered the injured man on a river bank downstream and radioed into her mysterious bank of helicopter-wielding friends.

In the last moments of The Walking Dead, Rick writes a letter to Michonne, which he puts in a bottle and throws it into a lake. He then throws a backpack into a nearby boat before surrendering himself to a helicopter. His ending was always ambiguous, which is why it felt so important to have his story resolved in The Ones Who Live. This spinoff eventually reveals Rick's fate as a soldier in the Civic Republic Military.

There was never a huge amount of ambiguity to Rick's ending. The same week Andrew Lincoln left the show to spend more time with his family in the UK, AMC announced a trilogy of movies based around Rick Grimes. This trilogy of theatrical releases turned into a mini-series about Rick and Michonne.

How The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Lived Ended And Will There Be A Season 2?

The season finale of The Ones Who Livedneatly ended Rick and Michonne's story when the pair single-handedly destroyed the entire CRM special forces, freeing the city and removing the national threat. Rick finally can go home to see Judith and meet his son, RJ, for the first time.

A season 2 of The Walking Dead spin-off is not confirmed yet, despite fans not wanting to say goodbye to their favorite characters. Although nothing has been announced, everyone involved is keen to explore other characters and bring them back in one form or another.

Showrunner Scott Gimple told EW, “It's definitely going to go somewhere. But it might just be in my brain. It might just be my fan fiction.”

Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick, also thinks that there is a potential to bring other survivors together for the spin-off.

“Never say never. There are other very important characters in the universe that are still wandering around and alive that I think it might be quite exciting to have them breathe the same air and see how long they survive together. But it's a difficult one. It would have to be like this, a really exciting story…If that were to come out of Gimple's or Danai's brain, and it was irresistible, then I think that there's infinite chance that it might happen again. But I don't know when.”

If the show doesn't get a second season, fans can be happy that Rick had some form of a conclusion to his story. Grimes essentially ended up where he started, with a family in a small community. Rick overcame his time as a CRM prisoner and honored the promise made by the show almost a decade ago.

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