The Walking Dead Officially Gets An Evil Rick Grimes

Published Sep 10, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT Craig began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016 and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. After previously writing for various outlets, Craig's focus turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally became useful. Craig has previously been published by sites such as Den of Geek. Craig is an approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-elvy-5b31a3381/ Being a cop is an integral strand in the DNA of Rick Grimes. Right at the beginning of The Walking Dead, Rick almost loses his life in the line of duty, setting the franchise protagonist up as a selfless bastion of justice and courage. In The Walking Dead's early seasons, Rick retains the outer shell of his former life, frequently donning his sheriff's uniform, hat, and pistol as a symbol of old-world civility in the zombie apocalypse. The qualities Rick Grimes gained during his law enforcement career are how he survives the outbreak. His leadership skills bring survivors together. His ability to organize keeps them safe. By being handy in a fight, Rick overcomes villains who had previously been officer workers, PE teachers, and artists. It's symbolic that when Rick Grimes reaches Alexandria and finds some semblance of normal life, he bounces right back to being a cop. And when he's dragged away from his family by the Civic Republic Military, returning to a world of discipline, order, and a rigid command structure allows him to assimilate successfully into a new life. You can take Rick Grimes away from the police, but you can't take the police away from Rick Grimes. An unspoken question baked into The Walking Dead's very premise has always been, "What if Rick used his training and knowledge for evil?" Rick chose to be a force for good, but with his police background, would have made for a dangerous villain. The Walking Dead showed glimpses of an answer through Shane, but Jon Bernthal's character died long before the days of walled settlements and rival communities fighting each other. The Walking Dead's Dillard Is The Closest We've Had To 'Evil Rick Grimes' Played by Jimmi Simpson, The Walking Dead: Dead City's Dillard is as close as the franchise has come to showing what Rick Grimes might've looked like as a villain. Like Rick, Dillard takes full advantage of his police training, but whereas the former was more of a rural sheriff, Dillard specialized in going undercover, inhabiting false personas before striking against his supposed allies. That's exactly what Dillard has done in Dead City season 3, cutting an unassuming and unremarkable figure, blending into the background like any good undercover cop would. Now, as the season finale looms, Dillard is triggering the sting operation, betraying those who had come to trust him. Now that the undercover stage of Dillard's gradual slide into villainy is complete, he reconnects with his cop persona, ritualistically putting on his old uniform and gun. Dillard uses his leadership skills to take command of the Dead Squad, shows his strategic thinking to seize control of the hospital by storming the armory and cutting off the security feeds, then employs crowd control training to suppress the angry residents. If Rick Grimes showed the positive effect of having a cop on your team during the zombie apocalypse, Dillard shows how those skills can be warped and twisted into something very much not positive. Negan Has Finally Come Full Circle In The Walking Dead Image via AMC The curious subplot to Dillard's position as the anti-Rick Grimes is that Negan, for the second time in The Walking Dead's history, is waging war against an enemy who was a police officer pre-outbreak. The fun twist now, of course, is that Negan finds himself (just about) occupying the moral high ground. He might've left a few dead bodies in his wake, but Negan is ultimately trying to keep Maggie's community together here, not serving himself as he was back in the Savior days. It's a demonstration of how far Negan has come since his battle against Rick Grimes, but also of how quickly moral battlelines can be redrawn in The Walking Dead's universe. One day, you're a villain fighting a good cop; the next, you're a hero fighting a bad cop.