She wasn't that personally important to Rick as a character. All I'm saying, is that I would have flipped things around a bit.
Technically, the last hallucination Rick saw was of Michonne, when it seemed like the entire cavalry rushed in to rescue him on the bridge, but Sasha was the final dream that we knew was a dream. Not when the opening acts were Jon Bernthal's Shane and (the late) Scott Wilson's Hershel. Secondly, I loved seeing Sonequa Martin-Green back as Sasha (in that dead body landscape nod to Walking Dead's 100th issue from the comics), but don't have her go on last. Just to get my few gripes out of the way up front, it's a shame that neither Sarah Wayne Callies or Chandler Riggs made it back for this one, as their ghosts, especially Carl, were sorely missed. Along the way, the show had to create an environment that, more or less, gave Rick permission to leave the show. Confusing geography aside (I knew Rick would cross Anne's path somehow, even though I don't ever know where anyone is really), "What Comes After," made for a good, gripping final trek for Rick, as he slogged through the Virginia forests with an oozing gut wound in an attempt to stay ahead of a hungry herd and make it home to his family. Like, really? I enjoyed the Tyreese episode but he got a whole hour to talk to phantoms (complete with dead characters returning) and reflect on things too?Īnyhow, Rick's journey was able to slyly skirt this convention in the final beats because - well - he didn't die! That's huge. In fact, seeing as how Rick more or less got almost the same farewell package, Tyreese's exit now feels a bit overbooked. I think most of us, generally, had a good idea of what this "final episode" would be, especially since the same ghoulish introspective treatment was given to Tyreese back in "What Happened and What's Going On" in Season 5. Because the jump at the end basically, when you break it all down, equals the entire numbers of years we've spent in the zompocalypse with all these characters. Yes, little did we know that this episode wasn't just Rick's farewell, but also a ghostly goodbye to this entire storyline of Walking Dead in general. What was that leap? Like, five or six years? That's the sort of time jump this show needed. Most of them have to do with the massive time jump that came at the end. Look, I have a lot of questions, as I'm sure you all do too. Hey, that was pretty damn good! And what a nice bit of misdirection during those final minutes too.