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The Walking Dead: Rick forgets Carl in his speech to Michonne

By Sarabeth Pollock

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 04: Chandler Riggs joins Andrew Lincoln onstage on day one of the 'Walker Stalker' convention at London Olympia on March 4, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Lorne Thomson/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 04: Chandler Riggs joins Andrew Lincoln onstage on day one of the 'Walker Stalker' convention at London Olympia on March 4, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Lorne Thomson/Getty Images) /
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Rick gave an impassioned speech to Michonne in The Walking Dead “Say Yes” but he forgot someone important while talking about fighting for the future.

Some of the best award acceptance speeches in history have featured accidental omissions. People giving speeches on the fly often leave out the most important people in their lives and this may have happened during Rick’s emotional speech to Michonne in The Walking Dead episode “Say Yes.”

Rick spoke very emotionally about the future as he and Michonne made their way back to Alexandria. Whether or not he survives, or whether or not she survives, the important thing is that the fight continues, he said. The fight is to ensure a good future, and the future is important because that’s the world that Judith and Maggie and Glenn’s baby will live in. And that’s worth fighting for.

But what about Carl? Oops.

I’ll grant you that Carl is almost an adult, but after Judith he’s the next youngest person in Alexandria. (Along with Enid) We don’t know a lot about the young people at the Hilltop, but there are children at the Kingdom who will need a good future world to grow up in. Regardless, Carl and Judith both represent the next generation of people living in this new world, but it’s their children that will really be impacted the most. What happens now paves the way for Judith and Carl and might determine whether or not they have children. Who knows what the world will look like in 20 or 30 years?

Clearly, Rick’s omission wasn’t intentional. It’s quite certain that he’s thinking about Carl’s future; we know he cares about Carl’s future because he tried to keep Carl out of the action when the group was at the prison. Rick demanded that Carl spend time working on Rick’s little farm rather than focus on protecting the perimeter with the rest of the group, but we know that Carl was honing his skills in secret while his father exorcised his demons.

Carl has grown up very fast since we first met him in the first season. Carl has learned to take care of himself, and Rick knows that his son knows what he’s doing. Even though Carl is a very capable young man dealing with some impossible circumstances, we still need to remember that he’s just a kid. Fighting for the future is every bit for him as it is for Judith.

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The larger point of Rick’s speech is what we need to focus on. This fight against the Saviors is bigger than any one person, it’s about the future for everyone involved. It might sound a tad bit melodramatic, but the All Out War coming is a fight for the future, and what happens here will set the tone for the way things are later.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.

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