The last two episodes of AMC's "The Walking Dead" have been extremely eyeopening for me as a huge fan of the show and as a huge fan of character development.
The shock that I felt at the end of the midseason finale when it was revealed that Carl Grimes had been bitten and would most certainly die was unimaginable. It was something that no one, especially me, saw coming. His death has already had an effect on multiple people, one obviously being his father Rick. But in the last episode, it appeared to have just as bad as an effect on Negan.
When Rick Grimes awoke in the hospital to the zombie-filled horror world that he was now a part of, he had one goal and that was to find Lori and Carl Grimes, his wife and son. After achieving that, he had one last goal and that was to keep the both of them safe.
When Rick and his group were moving forward and struggling to survive, they were led by the two alpha-males who happened to be partners in the police department and best friends from high school: Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh. In season two, it became extremely obvious that there was a ginormous power struggle between Rick and Shane and it appeared to us that it was completely motivated by Shane's misinterpretation of Lori's lust towards him and his feelings towards Lori. Shane grew bitter towards Rick and attempted to assume control of the group multiple times because he felt as though Rick was not capable of keeping his loved ones safe. Shane eventually attempted to kill Rick and Rick wounded up killing Shane. It was not a very unpredictable outcome, we had to have known one of them was going to die.
At the time that this was all happening in the show, many people disliked Shane and felt as though he was the first appearance of an antagonist other than zombies. I for one loved Shane and thought that his execution of certain things was spot on. In my eyes, his biggest moment came when he decided to open Herschel Greene's barn and let out all of the zombies Herschel was holding there.
As time has progressed, we've seen both Lori and Carl Grimes die, Carl being the latter of the two deaths and if not for a dragged out death episode, probably the more heartbreaking one.
Upon finding out that his protégé Carl Grimes was dead, Negan wastes no time in reminding Rick that he has gotten multiple people he's cared about killed, including Carl. He lets Rick know that Carl's blood is on his hands. And for the first time since this entire Negan and Rick conflict has been going on, I think I agree completely with Negan. This doesn't take away my hatred for Negan for what he did to Glenn, my favorite character, and Abraham and basically everybody else who's died since 2016 on the show, but he's right.
This obviously begs the question: Was Shane Walsh right about Rick Grimes all along?
Shane told Rick that he wasn't capable of keeping Lori and Carl safe and now here we are in season eight of the show, and they're both gone.
Lori died in season three after giving birth to Shane's kid, Judith. She went into labor when a poorly executed Rick Grimes plan went array and caused the group to get separated. It was then that I think Carl became a man. He had to shoot his own mother to put her out of her misery after a loss of blood caused her to suffer. Then he had to walk up to his father and "break the news." One might say that Lori's death isn't Rick's fault but looking back on it...it kind of is. Who knows what would have happened had the group not have been separated like that? Not to take anything away from Maggie Greene, but if Herschel Greene was there, Lori might have made it out of childbirth alive.
And this probably won't sound right to a lot of people, but if Rick wasn't out there trying to kill Negan, maybe Carl doesn't get bit trying to help Sadiq. Negan even said that to Rick!
And think about everything else that happened to Carl since the outbreak began and Rick found him. He got shot by Otis who was hunting a deer. Again, not necessarily Rick's fault but Carl almost died. He almost got eaten by a zombie after roaming off of Herschel's farm because Rick wasn't keeping an eye on him and was probably dealing with the moral issue of whether or not to kill Randall. Carl had to mercy kill Lori. Carl watched the governor kill Herschel and almost kill Rick. Carl almost got eaten when Rick was knocked out in a house. Carl got SHOT IN THE FACE by Rick's girlfriend's delusional son. Negan almost made Rick cut Carl's arm off. And then Carl tried to kill Negan at the sanctuary. He almost died as much as Glenn almost died...and now they're both dead.
As much as I love Rick Grimes, I think Shane was right about him. He has proven that he can't keep Lori and Carl safe because...Lori and Carl are both dead. It seems kind of harsh to put all of the blame on Rick's shoulders but he has to carry the weight.
