The Walking Dead iconic scene: Rick gets real with Alexandria

As we get closer to The Walking Dead’s final season, it is interesting to look back and revisit iconic moments. Over the ten seasons of the series, there have been so many great scenes, ones that stick with you and incapsulate what The Walking Dead is about.

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) has many amazing scenes that fans of the series will never forget. Something as simple as him waking up from a coma will always be a moment in Rick’s story that lives on long after the series is over.

When we first meet Rick, he is disoriented and confused about the world he has woken up to. The hospital is deserted, and he is unable to find another living soul in its halls. When he finds the famous door with the phrase “Don’t Open Dead Inside,” he is shocked at what he sees. Being in law enforcement, Rick has, no doubt, seen many things in his line of work, but dead people reanimating is nothing anyone has encountered until now.  Nothing in his training has prepared him for this.

The Walking Dead Rick Grimes a true leader

He is a natural-born leader, so he didn’t give a second thought about leading the new group of people and helping to keep them safe. Over the years, he went from a timid man trying to kill a walker with a baseball bat to the man we see in the scene below.

The scene above from 516 “Conquer,” has so many elements to it, making it one of the iconic scenes to show Rick and what he is capable of. To start, Rick nonchalantly walks into the meeting with a dead walker slung over his shoulder. It is like he is telling them, see, I told you something like this would happen. He shows that the Alexandrians do not know how to protect themselves and keep watch as they should.

When he says the line “How Many of You Do I have to Kill to Save Your Lives,” viewers can’t help but think of another character whose philosophy was quite similar, Negan. Rick tries to explain to them that continuing to do things the way they always have puts them in danger.

To push the point home, enter in Pete in a drunken rage, and he slices Reg’s throat. Yes, this was most likely accidental, but the community would have taken Pete and his behaviors seriously; this could have been avoided.

Rick might have come off as a bit crazy to the Alexandrians, but Rick didn’t live sheltered behind walls; he led his group in the thick of it all and learned what the new world is really about. Rick didn’t always make the right choices, but overall he was an outstanding leader.

The Walking Dead returns to AMC for the premiere of its final season on August 22.