RICK TURNS IN HIS BADGE

Andrew Lincoln ends a nine-season run as The Walking Dead’s hardened but heroic leader. Will we survive?

- JIM HALTERMAN

IT’S YET ANOTHER 90-degree September afternoon outside Atlanta, Georgia, and the cast members of The Walking Dead are taking turns trying to put into words how it feels to be filming without Andrew Lincoln, ex–sheriff’s deputy and de facto leader Rick Grimes. It’s not easy. “I don’t like goodbyes,” says Melissa McBride (tough Carol Peletier). Fans of the zombie apocalypse drama may even consider the linchpin character’s exit—which is coming up fast—the end of the world, but the show does go on. (We haven’t even seen the Whisperers, human antagonists who camouflage themselves among the walkers by wearing gnarly skins of the dead!) But for now, as Season 9 continues, the conclusion of Rick’s story looms large.

How will he go?

“I can’t tell you that!” is the usual refrain from cast members and executive producer Angela Kang when questions get even remotely close to the how and when of you-know-what. Lauren Cohan, aka fierce Hilltop boss Maggie Rhee, is also leaving soon to star with Scott Foley in ABC’s midseason drama Whiskey Cavalier. Says Norman Reedus (cool, battle-ready Daryl Dixon) of his two departing costars: “We haven’t seen these characters, like, die or anything”—but that may be misdirection.

Rick’s demise would make an excellent justification for the confirmed return appearances of three former cast members whose characters all perished: Jon Bernthal (Rick’s fellow lawman Shane Walsh), Sonequa Martin-Green (noble Sasha Williams) and the late Scott Wilson (Maggie’s farmer dad, Hershel Greene). Plus, the