What Comes After

God damn this episode was an emotional Rollercoaster and one of the greatest episodes of the entire show! Everything was perfect! The themes of life, sacrifice and forgiving yourself, was perfectly captured!

Rick Grimes was always the face of the show! That means this episode worked as incredible character development for him as well as a painfully tense and emotional journey that I dont think I will ever fully recover from!

This was the most i have cried since S7 E1! It was beatifull, creative and above all..faithfull love-letter to the character

This was The Walking Dead at its best, and the masterpiece it desperately needed!

This is by far the very best The Walking Dead episode ever made. It created so much tension, so much I didn't feel since the premiere of season 7. No I'm not gonna say if I felt happy, relieved or sad. You need to experience it yourself.

Will admit to not having high expectations at all for 'The Walking Dead's' Season 9. While really liking to loving Seasons 1-5 and finding a huge amount to admire about Season 6, Seasons 7 and 8 were really not up to standard and were huge disappointments (despite having some exceptions). Especially Season 8, where the worst episodes were pretty dreadful and where many of the episodes were mediocre or less. Season 9 though was a real surprise and saw the show seeming to find its identity again.

All the previous Season 9 episodes were excellent, especially "Warning Signs". "What Comes After" is notable for the exit of Rick Grimes, the character that had held 'The Walking Dead' together from the very beginning, as well as the returns of Shane, Sasha and Herschel in dream sequence form. It is another outstanding episode and one of the best of Season 9, truly powerful emotionally and satisfied to me as an exit of such a great character (am aware though that this aspect has divided the fandom).

It is a very stylishly and atmospherically made episode, with no signs of self indulgent gimmicks or showing off. The music is also full of atmosphere of the haunting and ominous kind, while also having emotion that is not spelled out. The more action oriented moments are thrilling, suspense laden and well choreographed, with an ending that roused and moved. Nothing is ridiculous or chaotic.

The massive improvement in the writing has not been lost with "What Comes After". The previous two seasons had a lot of (too much) extraneous talk, long winded-ness and soap-opera, and none of that is here in a tight and thoughtful script that treats the viewer with respect. The Season 1 callbacks were very affectionate and never felt forced. The story absorbs throughout, even when not fast paced it never felt dull and nothing for me felt confusing or over silly, while having a lot of emotional impact. For me, the exit was movingly done even if it was ambiguous and the appearances of Shane, Sasha and Herschel were also heart-warming.

None of the characters frustrated me or made ridiculous or vague decisions, a great job is done here with connecting with Rick. The acting is never less than very good, with Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal being outstanding. Couldn't help too choking up seeing Scott Wilson, who sadly died not long after.

Concluding, brilliant. 10/10.

This episode would have been at 10 for me if I had just sat down with no knowledge of what was going to happen. Unfortunately, as is becoming all too common these days, you pretty much knew what was going to happen with Rick. And that takes all of the surprise out of it. For about the first 45 minutes of this episode I wasn't terribly interested at all, other then the scene with Maggie and Negan. Basically, I was just sitting around watching Rick pass out and have a little talk with a dead loved one, get back up and pass out again, rinse and repeat. So it really didn't hold my attention. If I didn't know this was ricks last episode I would've been on the edge of my seat.

However, the last 25 minutes of the episode were absolutely great and I can't wait to see where everything goes from here. I'd say more but I really don't want to give a single thing away that you haven't already been told about.

So, definitely worth the watch! Definitely a great episode! And it is in the way the filmmakers fault that it could've been at 10 all the way through was partially spoiled because we the public are told too much before hand!

I can't believe that I am back into this series. I was just a hair away from leaving; but now WOW