‘Walking Dead’s’ Red Eye Rick Mystery May Have Been Solved

Not only do fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead have to keep up with the current goings-on of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his band of tormented-yet-resilient survivors, Season 8 has added in Lost-style flashbacks as well as visions of the future into the mix. There was already a lot going on in any given episode of the show, and now viewers have extra puzzle pieces to put together when trying to figure out what’s coming next.

One vision/flash-forward/who knows that’s been haunting viewers since the show came back last month is a vision of what’s come to be known as “Red Eye Rick.” The vision shows a wounded Rick slouched against a tree and staring off into the distance. Fans of course noticed his severely reddened eyes (hence the name), but they’re also obviously concerned about that big ol’ wound in his side. What does it all mean?!

Well, some fans have come up with a new theory following the airing of the most recent episode, “Dead or Alive Or.” The episode saw villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his followers devise a new weapon to use against Rick’s Hilltop community: they’re going to coat all their bladed weapons with walker guts, meaning that the slightest cut will infect the victim with the terminal zombie virus. Uh-oh!

As the fan theory states, that could be the key to figuring out what’s going on with Rick in that scene. He may have been sliced open with an infected blade, meaning no medicine can stop him from being turned into a walker. Perhaps that stare is because he knows this is it.

If you’re up-to-date on the Walking Dead comics, then you have further insight into this theory. Spoiler alert for the comics: Rick actually does get hit with what he believes is a tainted arrow in the storyline these episodes were inspired by. What he finds out, though, is that the arrow was fired by one of his allies, Dwight, and was not dipped in the walker poison. So, Rick was saved! Could that be the twist on top of the twist in the show, too?

It’s worth pointing out that while the show follows the general outline of the comics, TWD deviates from the source material all the time. And there are more ways to interpret this red-eyed vision of the possible future. Our own Alex Zalben stated his interpretation of this blood-shot vision of the future, one that deals with a similarly intense moment from the comics that’s potentially coming up quickly on the show. Odds are we’ll know more about these mysterious visions and just how accurate they are over the next few weeks as The Walking Dead wraps Season 8.

(via Uproxx)

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