The Walking Dead, season 9 review: Pivotal time jump – and four other unexpected twists from episode 5, 'What Comes After'

Major spoilers for episode five follow

Huge changes are coming in The Walking Dead – bigger changes than any fan could have anticipated.

The show’s latest episode marked the highly publicised swansong of Rick Grimes. Titled “What Comes After”, this instalment – the fifth of season nine – picked up immediately where last week’s left off: our hero impaled on a spike amid a horde of hungry walkers.

Given he’s been the show’s star throughout the past nine years, Andrew Lincoln’s departure is a pretty game-changing moment for this series. While he may have left The Walking Dead, former showrunner Scott Gimple made it clear that Grimes’s story is not over and will be further explored in a trilogy of big-budget films for AMC – the first of several projects featuring characters from within the universe.

With that in mind, this episode was perhaps the most vital in Walking Dead history, featuring the end of an era as well as the start of a brave new chapter.

Below are the episode’s five biggest talking points.

Maggie spares Negan

While the episode was billed as Rick’s final episode, “What Comes After” also marks the final season nine appearance of Maggie Rhee, played by Lauren Cohan. Thankfully, she is granted some (brief) closure. Earlier this season, Maggie decided it was time to defy Rick and kill Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the man who bludgeoned her husband to death a year and a half previous. This week, she arrives at Alexandria only to be met with an obstacle in the form of Michonne (Danai Gurirai). A few harsh words later, and Michonne acquiesces, handing Maggie the keys to his cell. What she finds surprises her: a shell of the man Negan used to be, begging her to kill him. Maggie refuses. “I came to kill Negan and you’re already worse than dead,” she states. “That settles it.”

Old familiars return

The majority of this episode sees Rick attempting to return to his friends and family despite his extremely life-threatening injury which sees him continually slip into a netherworld as death descends. In these dreamlike hallucinations, he’s reunited with several former characters, namely Shane (Jon Bernthal), Hershel (the late Scott Wilson) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) who each “help” Rick escape being devoured by walkers. These scenes are emotional for any fan who has watched this show from the very beginning, and sees mention of Shane’s death scene all the way back in season two as well as Hershel’s attempts to guide Rick to the light when he toed a villainous line in season four. It was Sasha who put it best: “We help each other, we change each other, and then it ends.”

Rick ‘sacrifices’ himself

Rick finally reaches the bridge he’s been building since the beginning of season nine, hoping that the oncoming herd of walkers will send it crumbling to the river – and saving Alexandria in the process. No such luck. Noticing some dynamite strewn on the floor of the bridge, he takes matters into his own hands and fires his gun, blowing it up and seeming to die in front of his devastated family and friends, including Daryl (Norman Reedus), Carol (Melissa McBride) and Michonne, who watch on in tears.

Jadis saves the day

Unbeknown to them, however, Rick lives. The explosion blew him off the bridge and onto a riverbank, where we see him lying and waiting to die. Step forward, Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) who’s waiting for that mysterious helicopter that’s been flying around for a few seasons now. “I have a B!” she exclaims over the walkie talkie, vowing to save Rick’s life. The helicopter lands and whisks Rick and Jadis away to an uncertain future that will be explored in the aforementioned trilogy of feature-length films. Rick’s time on the main Walking Dead series, however, is officially over, a powerful sentiment made stronger now knowing Rick will live on without his family.

The biggest time jump yet

(Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)

Six years, to be precise. The episode’s final moments introduce viewers to a crop of new characters, seen here fighting their way through a horde of walkers. Unfortunately, they find themselves completely surrounded, with no way out – until shots gun down zombies, allowing them to escape certain death. Relieved, they come face-to-face with their saviour – a ten-year-old girl, equipped with Michonne’s katana, who puts on a sheriff hat and introduces herself as... Judith Grimes! We’ve jumped six years into the future – “A New Beginning” has truly arrived, and with it comes Magna (Nadia Hilker), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), Luke (Dan Fogler), and sisters Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Kelly (Angel Theory), as well as new cast member Caily Fleming (young Rey in The Force Awakens).

The Walking Deadcontinues in the US on AMC every Sunday with the simulcast airing in the UK at 2am. The episode is also available to watch on NOW TV ahead of its repeat on FOX at 9pm the following evening.