‘The Walking Dead Red Machete’ Tells Origin Of Rick Grimes’ Famous Weapon

Negan’s Lucille may get most of the attention, but Rick has a handy weapon of his own, and its origin story is being revealed in a new web series released by AMC.

The Walking Dead Red Machete is a series of digital shorts that tracks the path of the red-handled machete favored by Rick Grimes in hand-to-hand combat on The Walking Dead. Its the same weapon Rick used to dispatch Gareth, the cannibal leader of Terminus, in The Walking Dead Season Five.

The first episode of the five-part series, titled “Behind Us,” goes all the way back to the beginning, when the red-handled machete was just one item on the shelf of a hardware store as the zombie apocalypse began. A young boy pulled the machete off the shelf and used it to defend himself from a walker. Unfortunately for him, the boy didn’t actually know how to kill a walker and ran the blade through his assailant’s stomach rather than striking at the monster’s head.

The boy died, but the machete ended up with a man taking care of two young girls, presumably his daughters. The man used the machete to defend himself and the children from walkers and to chop wood while holed up in their home.

However, the cabinets eventually ran bare the man was forced to lead the girls out into the walker-infested wilds. While making their escape, a walker grabbed one of the girls by the hair and she was lost, eaten before her sister’s eyes. The final scene of the episode shows the man using the machete to cut the surviving girl’s hair, ensuring that she does not suffer the same fate as her sister.

New episodes of The Walking Dead Red Machete will debut throughout the eighth season of The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead Season Eight premieres tonight, October 22, 2017, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.