The Walking Dead: Top 7 fatherly lessons learned from Rick Grimes

4) “We can’t help him.” (Season 4, Episode 16, “A”)

I’m not finished with the season four finale. Near the beginning of that episode, while Rick, Michonne, and Carl walked towards Terminus, pondering what they’ll tell the people of Terminus about themselves, Rick found a trap he had set, which had caught a rabbit.

While Rick explained the mechanics of the trap to Carl, they and Michonne heard a man screaming for help. Carl immediately ran to the source of the screaming, finding a lone stranger wearing glasses being surrounded by a large crowd of walkers.

Initially, Carl prepared to shoot at the walkers surrounding the poor man, but Rick stopped him, whispering to his son four very simple, but powerful words:

“We can’t help him.”

This was a tough lesson for Carl to learn, because, ever since season three, Carl had become something of the conscience of the group, and of Rick in particular, trying to keep him on the same path that his dad had shown him, as evidenced by the fact that it was Carl who convinced Rick to help Father Gabriel when the group found him immediately after escaping Terminus. Carl was the one who tried to get Rick to take in Siddiq when he first met him, and, was the one who eventually convinced his dad (Albeit posthumously) to spare Negan and the rest of the Saviors, something Rick was very much not inclined to do. That’s the sort of person Carl was.

Yet, Rick had to teach his son that, while they may want to try to save every person they meet, the fact is, in a zombie apocalypse, you just can’t. Sometimes, the odds are just against you, sometimes, there’s nothing you can do, sometimes, you just can’t help people.