Rick was always talking about the future on The Walking Dead, but six years after his disappearance is this the world that he envisioned?
After losing Carl in season 8 of The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes turned his focus to the future of civilization. There was an 18-month time jump from the end of season 8 to the start of season 9, followed by another month or so between 901 and 902. That means that by the start of 906 almost eight years have passed since the end of All Out War. Now that we’ve seen what “the future” looks like, is this what Rick envisioned?
In short: Probably not.
It’s clear that Michonne and Daryl are still dealing with Rick’s loss all these years later. The Sanctuary has fallen, someone other than Maggie is leading the Hilltop and it doesn’t sound like a great situation, there is disparity between the communities and instead of embracing newcomers they are turned away. (Thankfully Judith’s influence helped sway Michonne’s decision, so this group will receive a reprieve.)
What the heck happened?
It would be easy to point fingers and say that everything fell apart because Rick died/disappeared. Things were falling apart before he left, though, so it has to be something bigger.
Looking back, the foundation of the future was already chipped when Oceanside started killing the Saviors who wronged them. Were they justified? Certainly. It’s very easy to understand why they did what they did, but their actions (which were inspired by Maggie killing Gregory) triggered tension between the groups that Rick was trying to bring together. Work had already stopped before Rick blew up the bridge, but no work was done to repair the bridge after Rick’s death.
Each community is now functioning independently, with one community completely wiped out. Alexandria has a governing council while the Kingdom has a King and a Queen, and someone is leading the Hilltop but it’s unclear who she is. Nothing has been revealed about the Oceanside women or the people who lived at the Sanctuary who weren’t former Saviors. The only constant is that there doesn’t seem to be any unity between the communities.
There has to be a very good reason that Alexandria is so wary of strangers. Something happened in that six year span to make them not accept people openly. Helping people was something near and dear to Carl (helping Siddiq, then a stranger, was how Carl died) and it would make sense that Michonne would be the one to carry that torch but instead her focus is on security. As the one who lost both Rick and Carl, and the mother to Rick’s son, the quest for security suggests that Alexandria had to protect itself at some point in that six-year span and that’s why she has become tough on rules.
Rick’s vision was one of a unified group of communities, much like the colonies that banded together to form the early version of the United States. Over time we will no doubt learn why things are the way they are, but at the moment none of this looks like what Rick would have envisioned.