& # 39; The Walking Dead & # 39; Season 9, Episode 4 Announces the Death of Rick Grimes

Andrew Lincoln in the role of Rick Grimes in "The Walking Dead," season 9, episode 4.
(CMA)

SPOIL ALERT: Do not keep reading if you have not seen episode 4 of season 9 of "The dead who walk, Entitled "The obligated"

The death of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) approaches more and more, with this episode repeatedly teasing the Rick's Swan song.

But first …

The episode begins with Michonne (Danai Gurira). She works diligently to draft the charter that she wants to institute between communities while helping to raise Judith. But she still feels the need to sneak out at night and use her trusty katana to get rid of a few walkers. During one of these outings, she is distracted and after a walker has taken it, she drops her sword. She is forced to use the nearest available weapon, a baseball bat. The walker, Michonne has an uncomfortable moment while she is batting, probably evoking memories of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

At Hilltop, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) is back from the bridge camp but is preparing to leave immediately. She speaks briefly with Jesus (Tom Payne), who rightly deduces that Maggie plans to go to Alexandria and kill Negan, as she and Daryl (Norman Reedus) talked about it at the end of the week's episode. last. He tells her that Rick was wrong to make the unilateral decision to spare Negan, but he wants to make sure that Maggie does not make a mistake either by killing him now. Nevertheless, it persists.

On the bridge, Rick consults Eugene (Josh McDermitt), as it appears that a tax levied upstream has broken and may destroy the entire project. Eugene has some good news in that two flocking herds that the group followed did not merge into one flock, which would overload their defenses.

Rick then meets Carol (Melissa McBride), who tells her that she plans to return to the Kingdom. Previously, she had sent Alden (Callan McAuliffe) past the Saviors who had left the yard to convince them to return, but Carol said the group must be willing and able to fend for themselves. If their alliance with Rick and his company collapse, then so be it. Rick is distraught, but tells Carol that she is the shining example of how things can unfold for the better.

Jerry (Cooper Andrews) then arrives at the bridge with a message from Jesus for Rick. He tells Rick that Maggie is going to Alexandria and that she quickly realizes that she is planning to kill Negan. Rick relays a message to stop Maggie at the gates of Alexandria to a nearby surveillance station, but the young guard watching him does not hand it over at Rick's request. Rick then prepares to return to Alexandria to stop Maggie himself. Daryl will offer him a bike ride to go faster.

On the road, Daryl does not take the turn for Alexandria and Rick realizes that something is wrong. He forces Daryl to stop and the two men start arguing, Daryl explaining to Rick that it's time for Negan to die as he should have been at the end of the war. The argument turns to the physical, the couple running down a nearby hill in a hole discovered nearby.

Back in Alexandria, Michonne is informed that Negan refuses to eat in his cell. She goes down to see him, with Negan saying that he will eat as Michonne stays to talk to him. She reluctantly agrees to do so. He makes fun of her for staying in Alexandria and playing at home with Judith and Rick. He says that she is a warrior who is supposed to fight. She defends herself, saying that her efforts help rebuild the world. Negan then tells the story of his wife, revealing to Michonne that she died of cancer. He is happy that she died when she died, saying that she was too weak to survive in the new world. He also tells Michonne that she is secretly happy that her own child is dead because the child would have only slowed down and weakened her. She is angry, but not before throwing Negan's food on the floor.

She finally gives in and comes back. Negan tells her that she and he are the same and that makes her crazy. Before she leaves him again, he asks her what happened to Lucille, her barbed wire bat. She laughed and said that it was rotten, which devastated her.

Rick and Daryl try to get out of the hole, but to no avail. Daryl wants Rick to let Negan live, given the number of people he has killed, reminding Rick that he would not be alive if it were not for Glenn. He also tells Rick that Maggie simply could not live with the idea that Negan is still alive, just like Oceanside. Rick quickly realizes that Oceanside has killed the saviors who have disappeared. He tells Daryl that Negan will become a martyr to all the saviors who still wish to see him in power, and that everything they have done since the war will have been useless. Daryl hits Rick hard when he says he would die for Rick or Carl, but Rick pursues a foolish dream of believing that the world can be united again.

We then cut Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) and Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) in the case. Gabriel is tied in much the same way that Anne had previously tied up Negan. She has a walker attached again and ready to devour him, but Gabriel manages to calm her down. Rather than letting him die, she forces him to breathe some kind of chemical soaked in a rag, which makes him lose consciousness. When he wakes up later, she left a note saying that she must continue alone.

Carol and the others at the bridge camp prepare to leave when Jed (Rhys Coiro) and the other Saviors suddenly emerge from the woods. Jed carries a gun, which he says he took in Alden. He tells Carol that he discovered that Oceanside had killed the saviors and asked him to withdraw, no doubt so that he and his people could raid the camp's weapon cache. Carol drops her weapon, but when Jed gets closer, she hits.

Rick and Daryl hear the shots. Rick tells them that they will shoot the flocks. Daryl and he finally work together, get out of the hole and avoid the walkers who fall on it. Once they are free, they see one of the herds approaching. Rick grabs a horse that was leaving the camp and says that it will drive the flock away from the bridge.

He moves away but, soon after, he sees the other flock coming. His horse is scared and Rick falls. He lands on a piece of frame bar resting near the edge of the road, causing it to pass through the abdomen. He loses consciousness when the herds converge on him.