"Is Aaron the new Rick Grimes?" – The Walking Dead season 9 fans react to the new episode’s biggest change

Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead season 9

The Walking Dead season 9 sure knows how to shake things up. What looked a typically humdrum episode about the gang building a bridge turned into a pretty traumatic, bloody scene for one character in particular. For some, it all adds up to a big change coming down the road for when we say bye-bye to a certain Mr. Rick Grimes. Here’s what the internet has had to say about all The Walking Dead season 9, episode 2 – if you can stomach it.

Aaron lives. Just

I’ve heard of a logjam, but this is ridiculous. Despite Rick and company saving the day and giving the walkers squashed faces via rolling logs, it was Aaron who took more than a little nick after a log rolled onto his arm, which later had to be amputated. Ouch. As you can imagine, the easily-squeamish weren’t best pleased…

But is he shaping up to replace Rick?

If you know your comics, this all sounds eerily familiar. In the pages of the comic book series, Rick Grimes also lost an arm but came back better and stronger than ever. He was even given a nifty new limb replacement. So, it begs the question: is the show setting Aaron up to take over from Rick?

Everyone loves Aaron

Y’know, the whole having a log dropped on your arm thing might not work out too badly for Aaron. Once a friendly, if ultimately secondary character, a fair few people have found a newfound respect for him after toughing it out. Things are looking pretty rosy for the communities now…

Except Negan's back...

Fuck.

And that was probably The Whisperers at the end

Double fuck.

Don't forget to check out our round-up of all of the new TV shows coming your way from now up until the end of 2018.

Bradley Russell

I'm the Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, focusing on news, features, and interviews with some of the biggest names in film and TV. On-site, you'll find me marveling at Marvel and providing analysis and room temperature takes on the newest films, Star Wars and, of course, anime. Outside of GR, I love getting lost in a good 100-hour JRPG, Warzone, and kicking back on the (virtual) field with Football Manager. My work has also been featured in OPM, FourFourTwo, and Game Revolution.