The Walking Dead: Lori Returns Tomorrow…What Does it Mean?

Promotional material for tomorrow’s episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead has provided fans with a look at Sarah Wayne Callies, who plays Lori Grimes on the ratings smash.Of course, those who have been watching know that Lori died (or at least we all assume that she did) near the beginning of the series. While she’s been returning periodically to “haunt” her husband and the prison he calls home, she’s always appeared in her wedding dress, a kind of idealized version of herself where she’s cleaner and more put-together than the rest of the cast.Here, though, we see a vision of Lori that’s not only very similar to what we’ve seen before in the series but actually almost identical to what she was wearing (and where she was standing) the last time she and Rick spoke.What’s that all about?Well, obviously there’s a small but vocal contingent of fans who claim Carl didn’t actually kill shoot his mother before she turned (it happened off-screen) and that we’ll see her again, either as a living person (very, very unlikely) or as a zombie (only one very but still…). These conspiracy theories endure in spite of repeated assurances by actors on the show and executives behind it that Lori is dead-dead and not to be seen again.The more likely theory, though, is one that’s a bit more about Rick’s road to psychological recovery. After all, it’s been a few episodes since his last…well, episode. It seemed as though he was on his way to doing better, and that seeing an apparition of his wife would be a huge step backwards.But I don’t think that’s right. I think this–Lori appearing to him again in relatively the same way she did the last time he actually saw her alive–might be “her” way of saying good-bye.The changes in Lori’s appearance–the idea that she’s no longer being elevated above the rest of the group, and that she’s no longer idealized in the same way she has been–may actually point to the idea that while Rick may be seeing things, he may not be haunted anymore.