Walking Dead Episode Where Carl Rescuse Guy in Woods

Warning: this article contains MAJOR spoilers for The Walking Dead season 8, episode 9, 'Honor' - only read this after you've seen the episode!

Returning after a 10-week hiatus, The Walking Dead packed plenty of major reveals into its mid-season premiere, 'Honor'.

First, we get to see the exact moment when Carl (Chandler Riggs) got bit, in all its gory glory - as fans had speculated, it happened during that tussle in the woods (back in episode 8.6, 'The King, the Widow, and Rick'), when two walkers tackled the teen to the ground.

Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

In the character's final appearance, we even find out why Carl never took off that damn Sheriff's Deputy hat - as he passes it on to little sister Judith, Rick's son explains that he wore the hat to keep a part of his father with him, always, even when they weren't together. *sniff*

But the episode's most significant reveal comes with a revisiting of those hazy, idyllic 'Old Man Rick' scenes from October's season 8 premiere: all of Rick Grimes's friends and family, living together and thriving.

Speculation had been rife ever since we first glimpsed an older, greying Rick (Andrew Lincoln) - living in apparent domestic bliss with Michonne, Carl and Judith - that the whole thing was a fantasy, rather than a genuine flashforward.

It turns out that theory was right, sort of. Only it's not Rick's fantasy, it's Carl's.

AMC

Yes, 'Honor' reveals that the 'Old Man Rick' sequences are a dying Carl's dream of what life could be like, if his father does what's right and puts an end to all the killing. "You can't see yet, how it could be," Carl tells his dad. "But I have."

In Carl's imagination, all of his loved ones - and even a few former foes - co-exist peacefully in a rebuilt Alexandria. "Everybody living, helping everybody else live," he explains. "That's how it could be."

It's a world in which even Negan - a man who once beat Glenn and Abraham to a bloody pulp - is all smiles and hugs and helping to plant cabbages. This vision of a better future is Carl's parting gift.

Gene Page/AMC

Just before his son takes his own life, to prevent his coming back as one of the undead, Rick swears to Carl that he'll carry 'Old Man Rick' with him always, and that he'll "make it real".

'Honor', though, also revisits that other mysterious strand from earlier in the season - scenes of a shaken, bleary-eyed Rick. Here, he's seen sat at the foot of a tree, trembling, covered in blood.

Making Carl's dream a reality, it seems, might not be as easy as all that...

The Walking Dead continues next Sunday at 9/8c on AMC, and airs on Mondays at 9pm on FOX in the UK.

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Walking Dead Episode Where Carl Rescuse Guy in Woods

Source: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a850613/the-walking-dead-season-8-episode-9-old-man-rick-explained/

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