Remember the first time Andrew Lincoln showed up on our screens as Rick Grimes? Rick wasn’t just a sheriff with a hat. He was the guy we rooted for, cried over, and occasionally wanted to shake upside down when he made questionable decisions.
Over The Walking Dead's run, we watched Rick evolve from a small-town sheriff into a leader, a fighter, and someone who carried the weight of a shattered world on his shoulders. And then... he was gone. The Walking Dead ended, and we were left wondering when we'd see him next. Fortunately, AMC ordered a spinoff of The Walking Dead centered on Rick. Remember The Ones Who Live? In that series, we got to see Rick finally reunite with Michonne. But then that show wrapped up, and we were once again left craving more of Lincoln’s magnetic presence on our screens.
Although Lincoln hasn't reprised his role as Rick since then, fans don’t have to wait any longer to experience his incredible presence in a new, gripping story. This show might not feature any walkers or post-apocalyptic chaos, but there's enough happening to grab your attention and keep you invested.
Coldwater starring Andrew Lincoln is now streaming on Paramount+
Yes, the day has finally come. We've been talking about this show since October 2025, when Paramount+ announced that Coldwater would be making its U.S. debut on the platform in 2026. Now, it's finally here. Paramount+ released the first episode of Coldwater on Jan. 9, and it's a show that Walking Dead fans will absolutely enjoy if they miss seeing Lincoln take on complex, deeply human characters.
Here's the show's official synopsis via a Paramount+ press release:
"Stay-at-home dad John moves his family up from London to the rural Scottish town of Coldwater after his failure to intervene in a violent confrontation at a playground brings his identity crisis to a head. On arrival, John is quickly befriended by next-door neighbor Tommy, a charming, confident pillar of the community. But it’s only after a series of unsettling incidents start to occur that John starts to wonder who the real Tommy actually is."
Besides Lincoln, the cast is made up of Eve Myles, Ewen Bremner, Indira Varma, Lorn Macdonald, Samuel Bottomley, Abigail Lawrie, Lois Chimimba, Gilly Gilchrist, and Jonathan Watson.
On the surface, Coldwater and The Walking Dead couldn’t look more different. One is a quiet, grounded psychological thriller set in a remote Scottish village. The other is a sprawling post-apocalyptic survival saga full of walkers, warlords, and collapsing civilizations. But beneath those surface-level differences, Coldwater taps into the same emotional DNA that made The Walking Dead resonate so deeply with audiences in the first place.
It centers on an ordinary man pushed into an extraordinary psychological crisis. One of the most compelling things about The Walking Dead was never the zombies. It was Rick. He started as a normal man with a simple identity: a cop, a husband, a father. The apocalypse stripped that identity away and forced him to rebuild himself in a brutal, unfamiliar world. Coldwater does something very similar on a psychological level.
Lincoln’s character, John, isn’t fighting the end of the world. He’s fighting the collapse of his sense of self. After failing to intervene during a violent incident, he spirals into shame, guilt, and confusion about who he is, what he stands for, and whether he’s still a good man. That internal unraveling mirrors Rick’s external one. In both cases, the story isn’t about what’s happening around the character. It’s about what that pressure does to him.
Only the first episode of Coldwater has been released so far, and it ended on a shocking note. It wrapped up with a murder and a cover-up. We don't want to spoil how the rest of the thriller series unfolds. However, you'll want to stay tuned in to see what happens next. There are six episodes in total, with a new episode dropping on Paramount+ every Friday. The series finale is set to be released on the platform on Feb. 13.