Rick Grimes’ Location Revealed on The Walking Dead: World Beyond

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s TWD: World Beyond, “The Last Light.” Where is Rick Grimes? The series finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond confirms the top-secret location of Andrew Lincoln’s long-missing zombie apocalypse survivor. More than six years after Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) flew away from The Walking Dead with Rick aboard a Civic Republic Military helicopter, Jadis landed on World Beyond to reveal their destination: the Civic Republic. Called the “last light of the world” because of its resources, Jadis traded Rick to the CRM to get inside the hidden city and live among its 200,000 survivors. Its location: classified. 

Until now. 

A cryptic teaser trailer for Jadis and Rick’s return in The Walking Dead Movie appeared to show the CRM helicopter headed for the skyline of a new location in the Walking Dead Universe: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

That’s about 150 miles away from Rick’s last sighting in Alexandria, Virginia, and about 230 miles away from the Civic Republic Research Facility in Ithaca, New York. On World Beyond, the CRRF is where CRM scientist Dr. Lyla Belshaw (Natalie Gold) conducted walker experiments under Project Votus: the study of live test subject “As” to further the CRM’s research on reanimation.

But Jadis told the CRM that a gravely injured Rick was a “B,” securing a live-saving copter medevac for Rick and trading him to the military as her ticket into the Civic Republic. 

“The Last Light” goes inside the walls of the Civic Republic to confirm the “hidden city” is Philadelphia. When Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes enlists soldier recruit Silas (Hal Cumpston) to the CRM, visible landmarks include iconic Philadelphia skyscrapers One and Two Liberty Place. 

The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang previously told ComicBook that Scott Gimple, chief content officer of AMC’s TWD Universe and writer-producer of the Rick movies, requested the show altogether avoid Pennsylvania when Eugene’s (Josh McDermitt) group travels to the Commonwealth in Charleston, West Virginia, in Seasons 10 and 11. 

In Season 10 of The Walking Dead, Rick’s partner Michonne (Danai Gurira) finds evidence he survived his apparent death in Season 9. It’s inside a ship washed ashore on Maryland’s Bloodsworth Island where Michonne discovers a logbook documenting visits to various locations sometime over the last six years: Tampa Bay, Florida; Hopewell, Virginia; and most recently, Bridgers Shipyard in New Jersey. Michonne is last seen headed north in search of Rick. 

The official synopsis for the Walking Dead Movie says the film will reveal what comes after Rick’s fateful helicopter flight taking him to a “new corner of the zombie apocalypse” — a setting now confirmed to be Philadelphia. The film remains in active development and a release date for Rick’s return in theaters is TBD. 

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter and ComicBook’s @NewsOfTheDead for TWD Universe coverage all season long.