‘The Walking Dead’: What to Know for Season 6
Sure, the West Coast prequel Fear the Walking Dead was a fine summer diversion (and may one day develop into a must-see show), but let’s be honest: Zombie-lovers have mostly been drumming their rotting fingers since March, waiting for the original to come back.
This Sunday night, Rick and Carol and Glenn and the rest of TWD‘s ragtag band of survivors finally return, for the first of 16 Season Six episodes (to be split, as always, into two eight-episode batches). And while the fifth season ended with most of the characters in one place for a change — and relatively secure — let’s take a moment to recall exactly where we left off, and to prepare for whatever horrors may await the living in the weeks ahead.
The old Rick is back…
The Walking Dead‘s main, morally tortured protagonist Rick Grimes was forced into a leadership role early in the series, then backed away from the helm as soon as he felt like his little circle of friends and fellow travelers had stabilized. But last season, when his group was invited to join a mini-society of sophisticated suburbanites in the well-stocked, well-fortified “Alexandria Safe Zone” — the old Rick reared his head again. Our hardened hero hatched a coup-plot, taking the job of constable so that he could gain access to an arsenal and work behind the scenes to save Alexandria’s dangerously naive residents from themselves.
The mutiny was eventually exposed, and a kangaroo court convened to decide what to do about Grimes. But in the finale, Rick proved his indispensability when he re-killed a “walker” that had wandered in through a breach in the perimeter, and then bumped off a sword-wielding, wife-beating surgeon named Pete for good measure. Everything’s out in the open now: Rick has declared his intentions to teach this community how to survive, whether they want to follow him or not. And in Sunday’s premiere, he tries to get them to rally behind him for one of the boldest zombie-disposal plans these folks have ever attempted.
‘The Walking Dead’: What to Know for Season 6, Page 1 of 3