With the upcoming third and final installment of The Walking Dead universe’s flagship series dropping in October, TWD fans might have cause for sorrow, but in fact, they have much to celebrate. Fear the Walking Dead continues on, and AMC recently announced Isle of the Dead, a limited spinoff series featuring Lauren Cohan’s Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan.

Best of all, at the recent San Diego Comic Convention, AMC execs revealed a new series starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira will be coming instead of the planned Rick Grimes movies, and fans would love to see the Maggie and Negan spinoff somehow crossover into Rick’s final character arc.

Something In Manhattan May Be A Part Of The CRM’s Designs

Although the exact location of the Civic Republic Miliary’s main base of operations is as of yet unknown, in the season finale of Walking Dead: World Beyond, a ruined skyline was shown behind Silas and Jadis that appeared to be similar to Philadelphia. If, in fact, the CRM is based in the northeast, it stands to reason they might have interests located in nearby New York.

It’s possible Maggie and Negan might be headed to Manhattan for a CRM-related issue and eventually come across Rick and Michonne, be it pursuing rumors of a cure or fellow survivors’ whereabouts (perhaps even Rick), a rescue of some sort, or a recon mission dedicated to either improving their post-TWD community status or finding a specific New York-based MacGuffin necessary for someone’s survival.

The Potential For A Commonwealth And CRM Showdown

These two para-militaristic organizations have been the primary antagonists across most of the TWD universe’s shows, and as of yet, fans haven’t seen any known relationships between the Ohio-based Commonwealth and the (presumably) Philadelphia-based Civic Republic Military. Whether the former turns out to be a subsidiary branch of the CRM or is, in fact, its own entity remains to be seen.

The story potential is obvious in a possible eventual confrontation between the two, and as Maggie and Negan continue their unlikely friendship from the flagship Walking Dead show and are still dealing with Commonwealth issues in Isle of the Dead, they could easily come across Rick or Michonne in that manner.

Writers On Both Shows Likely Want Rick And Negan Face To Face Again

The truth is, while The Walking Dead main show has been chock full of flashpoint moments, events, characters, story arcs, and shocking surprises, the franchise itself was virtually built upon the roaring start and subsequent slow-burn between Andrew Lincoln’s hero Rick Grimes and his near perfect villain counterpoint, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan.

The chemistry between Lincoln and Morgan was evident from the get-go, and Negan’s long road to reform after Rick’s supposed death wasn’t witnessed by Rick himself. Negan’s redemption arc, including his bond with Rick’s daughter Judith and his fragile alliance with Maggie, are plot points that desperately need addressing by Rick himself. It’s possible Negan may seek out Rick for final validation.

Their Children May Need Something Only The CRM Can Provide

Season 11 brought the shocker that not only did Negan find a new community, but he was married to Annie, one of its members, and even more staggering was the reveal she was also 12 weeks pregnant with Negan’s child. To say Maggie was surprised was an understatement, no less so than The Walking Dead audience themselves.

Now that Negan’s on the road to fatherhood, it’s safe to say given his best efforts at redeeming himself, his resolve to become a better person will only intensify. Writers could easily have Maggie and Negan make a decision to head north to find something necessary for either Maggie’s son Herschel or Negan’s unborn child, and they could discover Rick alive along the way.

Isle Of The Dead May Be A Literal Setup To Rick And Michonne’s Spinoff

It’s possible AMC execs and Walking Dead producers have known for some time that Maggie and Negan’s spinoff show would be a forerunner project for the return of Rick Grimes and that scripts for the limited series were written with that in mind. It’s likely a coincidence that the promo poster for Isle of the Dead featured a prominently displayed Lincoln tunnel sign, but an interesting potential Easter egg to consider nonetheless.

It’s not out of the question that Rick may not have been imprisoned at a CRM-locked facility somewhere in Philadelphia but has instead, for whatever reason, been interred in the zombie-infested island of Manhattan all this time.

Maggie Needs To Have A Heart-To-Heart With Rick

Rick Grimes and Maggie Rhee are two of the show’s most heralded characters and are among the earliest established Walking Dead characters who are still alive so many years later. Like Rick Grimes, Maggie Rhee has uniformly kept her own counsel, making leadership decisions for an assortment of communities through an array of TWD narratives.

It may turn out that rather than Negan searching for validation, it’s Maggie who might need some help with her inner peace after all the years of conflict and feudal posturing. Perhaps upon hearing of Rick’s unexpected survival of his supposed death at the bridge and his feasible presence in New York, she may look up one of the only people she always trusted.

Upgraded Zombies May First Appear In New York

Fans have waited for years to see if the zombie virus would take different and more dangerous forms ala the Resident Evil series, 28 Days Later, or Zombieland, and in the season finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, that fan lip service was finally issued. It was revealed the zombie virus had begun in a French laboratory, and their efforts to treat the condition resulted in a mutated variation that made reanimated corpses faster and smarter.

The prospect of rabid, mutated zombies first landing on American soil in New York from Europe is certainly possible, and a last-second Rick-style intervention for a trapped Maggie and Negan would be right up the TWD universe’s alley.

Maggie And Negan Might Run Into Michonne First

When audiences last saw the intrepid swordswoman, Michonne was headed north with a larger group. After accompanying Virgil to his home on Bloodworth Island, she found Rick’s boots and an engraving of her and Judith on an old defunct iPhone, proving to her that her husband was indeed somehow still alive.

Along with those findings, she also discovered a map that mentioned a shipyard in New Jersey. If Michonne did indeed travel to New Jersey to seek out Rick, not only might it be likely he may be somewhere near there like New York, it’d certainly make more than fortuitous sense if Maggie and Negan cross paths with her while in the area…or maybe rumors of Michonne will be the reason they go to Manhattan in the first place.