Rick Grimes flew away from The Walking Dead in a helicopter to a location which has yet to be revealed. The Walking Dead: World Beyond might be the helicopter which transports fans to the answers which they seek. The new AMC zombie series aired its pilot episode of Sunday night, making it clear there are going to plenty of ties to the expanding universe and the group which carried Rick away from Alexandria, as the three-ring logo on the side of Rick’s helicopter was in World Beyond‘s pilot more times than you can count. While The Walking Dead: World Beyond will be telling its own two-season story, Felix actor Nico Tortorella believes the series’ purpose might also be to get everyone to the story taking place with Rick Grimes.
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‘I mean, I think that’s why the show was being made in so many ways,” Tortorella told ComicBook.com on the Virginia set of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. “There are giant pieces of the puzzle that are put together right from the first episode of this show. And I think in a lot of ways, the show is leading us to the bigger, the movies and the larger storyline. For sure.” The next day, while Insider’s Kirsten Acuna was on set, Tortorella revealed they know where Rick Grimes is. This, of course, implies that the full 20-episode arc has been disclosed to the cast of World Beyond and the destination might just be Rick Grimes.
Originally, there was a plan to have Rick Grimes in upstate New York for the first of his planned movie trilogy. This is information which I teased on ComicBook.com’s After the Dead back in 2018, promising Rick had traveled, “Northeast,” prior to any Comic-Con teaser revealing a Philadelphia skyline. The script for those movies has since been rewritten with Robert Kirkman attached and ideas may be changing behind the scenes — but New York and the idea of a cure are clearly still in play after World Beyond‘s pilot details.
Tortorella, a self-professed “diehard” fan of The Walking Dead through its first five seasons (and only stopped watching because they didn’t get a role in Fear the Walking Dead before eventually taking a major role in World Beyond). This means Tortorella is also excited to see the Rick Grimes story play out and how Felix Carlucci may or may not factor into it.
“Once this came together, I was like, ‘Do I go and watch everything? Do I like commit to understanding the full world?’” Tortorella explains. “And I went back and watched the first two seasons of the original, which was like two of the greatest seasons of any television show ever made. And I got into Fear some, but I made the decision, like Felix would have no idea what’s going on out there. So like, I don’t need to know what’s going on, totally. I want to be a fan, as well as being part of the universe, you know? And I think like having those realizations come in the series, that’s great.”
The Walking Dead: World Beyond airs Sundays at 10pm ET, following new episodes of Fear the Walking Dead at 9pm ET. The Walking Dead will return for 6 more episodes in Season 10 in the spring. The 11th and final season of The Walking Dead will begin airing in the Fall of 2021.
