'Fear The Walking Dead' Keeps Teasing Fans About Rick With These Shady Helicopters

Spoilers for Fear The Walking Dead ahead. Hang on a second, Walking Dead fans. Is Fear The Walking Dead bringing Rick Grimes back? That helicopter at the end of Sunday's episode is a major clue that this might actually be happening. That definitely was the same helicopter that took Rick away in his final episode of The Walking Dead, right? They're practically identical, down to the "A" and three-ring symbol marked on the side, so if it isn't the same helicopter it at least belongs to the same group of people and is headed to the same place. That helicopter could honestly be on the way to answer Jadis/Anne's call to get Rick in real time.

Fans have already speculated that this group is the Commonwealth from the Walking Dead comics. Whatever it is will likely feature in the upcoming TWD feature films — and now it seems like some characters from Fear will be involved as well. When The Walking Dead declared that Season 9, Episode 5 would be Rick Grimes' last episode, they never said anything about crossing over to another series. Technically, Rick already has appeared on Fear The Walking Dead. Morgan's first episode on the spin-off opened with a conversation between him and his best friend Rick in a junkyard previous owned by a woman named Anne.

Speaking of Anne, also known as Jadis, she's the one who arranged for the helicopter to come collect her and Rick. It really is all connected.

It sure would be quite the clash of personalities, if that Rick Grimes energy made it to Fear. Would he like Morgan's new friends and their altruistic mission? “I’d quite like to see Rick and John Dorie have a kind of gunslinger," said actor Lennie James at a fan convention. "A High Noon moment.”

The timeline does actually work, by the way. When Dwight appears on Fear The Walking Dead, he revealed that about a year has passed since he was banished by Daryl and started following bread crumbs left by his wife, Sherri. That means that the events of this season line up to just about, or just before, Rick's disappearance. While the original series subsequently jumped several years into the future, Fear can fill that gap.

After the TWD Season 9 finale, executive producer Scott Gimple teased on Talking Dead that “I will say Fear the Walking Dead is coming up in June, and there is a story in the first half of the season that has to do with one of these greater stories of the universe that will bring in some of the things that all of you guys have seen before, and it will expand it out just a little bit more — and then we’ll have an announcement."

Another announcement. That could mean more information about the Walking Dead cinematic, or it could be a formal announcement that Rick is crossing over to Fear for an episode or two.

Now that Fear The Walking Dead has been on for five seasons, it doesn't seem wrong to bring major characters over from the original series in such a dramatic way. Alicia, Strand, Luciana have a different history and a different understanding of this post-apocalyptic universe. If Rick were to appear, it wouldn't feel like he was overshadowing everything the show has built to stand on its own. With so few people left alive, it makes sense for the universe to get a little smaller, and it's finally the right time.