Rick Grimes made a life-altering decision in Episode 1 of his Walking Dead spin-off.

Rick in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 included a brutal scene featuring Rick Grimes cutting off his own hand, but many are still wondering why the main character made that decision.

After Andrew Lincoln devoted years to portraying Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, he reprised his role in one of the flagship show’s multiple spin-offs.

In that series, titled The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Rick and Machonne continue their relationship amidst the ongoing zombie apocalypse that began in The Walking Dead.

The Ones Who Live (which had a massive star-studded cast) originally premiered on AMC and AMC+ in February 2024, but Season 1 was recently added to Netflix, allowing an entirely new audience to experience the show.

Why Did Rick Grimes Cut Off His Right Hand?

Andrew Lincoln as Rick GrimesAMC

In the premiere episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Rick Grimes was seen as a prisoner of the Civic Republic Military (also known as CRM) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The show explained that Rick had been a prisoner there for a while, and had tried to escape a number of times, but ultimately found no success.

One day, while out on an official CRM operation with other prisoners, Rick found himself chained up to one of the CRM’s soldiers. However, so he could still work, only one of his hands was chained.

As mentioned, Rick tried to escape from the CRM before, but this time he was more determined than ever. Seeing an opportunity to finally get away, Rick decided to cut off his hand that was chained up.

While it was definitely painful and would change his life forever, it did help him get away, although only briefly. After getting away for not even a minute, Rick got recaptured and brought back into the CRM’s control.

Why Rick Losing His Hand is Important

Rick losing his hand in the premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is obviously important narratively and set the tone for the rest of the series, but it actually meant a lot more to hardcore fans.

In the comic books that The Walking Dead was based on, Rick lost his right hand pretty early on.

To put into perspective how early, the governor was still alive, so if he had lost his hand in the series the same way he did in the source material, it would have happened in one of the earlier seasons of the flagship show (which was recently teased to be receiving another season).

Fans have been waiting for Rick to lose his hand for a long time. It was an extremely pivotal moment in the comics because he lost his right hand, which was his dominant one.

That meant he had to completely relearn both basic and complicated tasks, which was a huge challenge for him. However, in The Ones Who Live, Rick cut off his left hand, so it wasn’t as detrimental, but he still lost something that would affect him forever.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is streaming on AMC+ and Netflix.