“When I was a kid, I asked my grandpa once if he ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn’t answer. He said that was grown up stuff, so…. So I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him, but he got real quiet. He said he was dead the minute he steeped into enemy territory. Every day he woke up he told himself, ‘rest in peace—now get up and go to war.’ And then after a few years of pretending he was dead, he made it out alive. And that’s the trick of it, I think. We do what we need to do, and then we get to live. But no matter what we find in DC I know we’ll be okay, because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead.”
Rick Grimes rarely discusses personal details with the rest of the group, but in Season 5, Episode 10, "Them", he states what is sure to become the most iconic pieces of dialog in the series.
With Bob, Beth and Tyreese gone, everyone in the group is finding it difficult to go on, compounded by the lack of food and water (the dogs probably weren't too filling). Rick’s speech, given in a desolate barn is intended to inspire the group.
He told Entertainment Weekly:
"When I was preparing for the first season of this show I read a few things and The Roadwas one of them. I just thought that is a modern parable. I mean that’s what it is: It’s a kind of classic parable and that’s the closest thing I can equate it to. I think there’s a simplicity, a directness, and a poetry in that book. Certainly the script had it and I hope we’ve managed to capture that in episode 10."
What did you think of Rick's speech in Episode 10? Did you prefer the comic version?
