What Would Have Happened If Shane Killed Rick Grimes?

The biggest victim, as we’ll see, is probably Carl. Shane was, in many ways, a reminder of what was truly broken in the pre-apocalypse. He had a rude, inward opinion about everything, and he was sure he was right, so sure that he’d do anything to prove it. Defensive, brooding, an American alpha male coward, he’d stick to his opinions no matter the evidence, and continuously try to bully people around to his dim point of view, driving any helpful, intelligent people away. ‘Surround yourself with good people’ is not a Shane thing. Wads clumping into dipshit clans is more his speed. Rick, on the other hand, made concrete his better qualities in action after action that sandblasted away any confusion, and he brought out the best in people. Here, I’ll speculate on the alternate storyline events following the tragic death of Rick Grimes at the hands of the jealous hayseed Shane Walsh.

To begin with- the herd attack on the farm that immediately followed the Shane and Rick showdown. Shane would have returned on the move, the herd at his heels, just as Rick and Carl did, and immediately sweep up Lori and Carl. He’d tell everyone Rick was dead and they had to run for it, and then he’d leave the group for good. From there, Shane, Lori and Carl would move along from house to house as Shane slowly lost his mind. Eventually, he’d resolve into a low creature of malice and begin picking up other survivors (weaklings he could whip around at first, then other sacks of shit like himself) and start his own Negan-like group of Thunderdome assholes. We’ll call this hypothetical group The Dixie Chainsaw Boys. Let’s chart their rise and fall.

The Dixie Chainsaw Boys would distinguish themselves in many ways. First, they would all favor baseball caps and dress in castoff military clothes. Empowered by his flock but also unable to stop himself, Shane would keep them at odds with each other, backchanneling lies, exaggerations and twisted half-truths, so it would be a fractured, uneasy group, full of backbiting and bitterness rather than small harmonies. Eventually they’d raze Alexandria, a totally defenseless place without Rick, then they’d destroy The Kingdom, where Sasha and Tyreese unfortunately lived as well (poor Jerry, he died a noble death). Oceanside would be turned into a brothel outpost and later be destroyed completely in a violent uprising. The Governor would have been beheaded right away, and that’s probably where the Dixie Chainsaw Boys would make their overflowing slob nest. After a solid fight followed by peace talks, Negan, tricked by the wily Shane, would be chainsawed apart in a makeshift boxing ring and fed to his underbosses, who would be butchered directly afterward. The remaining low level Negan goons would don their baseball caps and fold right in. The Whisperers would take one look at the giant army of gun crazy slavers and Alpha, being a woman under that mask and in no way about to risk redneck Sharia, would point her herd toward the Mississippi. The artist colony at the dump would starve out and perish quietly.

But Carl… Poor Carl would grow up angry, sullen, brimming with resentment- a scheming, whiny, absolute bummer of a guy. In his late teens, unable to deal with the squalid half-life associated with unresolved childhood trauma and, tragically, after the Dixie Chainsaws had firebombed every settlement in three states, killed all the men and enslaved all the women, Carl would murder Shane in a secretive, cowardly way and ride off to die a lonely death, too crazy to make a life on his own and too obnoxious and untrustworthy to blend in with any of the wary strays who survived the Dixie purges. Lori would be long gone by then, and Judith would never have been born.

Daryl and the rest, post-farm, would push on to Fort Benning. Hershel would keep his leg. Daryl would take charge and the group would head for Montana after the Fort Benning debacle. There, they would build a strange new culture in the ruins of Livingston, one based on ZZ Top, sorghum and ethanol. It would emerge in the coming decades as a place called Hello Dinner, an inviting name for a township and the regional powerhouse exporter of beef jerky, moonshine, and metalwork.

Glen and Maggie would have several children and both would work at the still, Dixon & Rhee’s Gold Label Corn Shine. Happy. Maggie’s sister Beth would live and eventually form the first post-apocalypse punk bands, REO Asswagon, and afterward become Mayor of Livingston when Daryl finally stepped down. Carol would run Livingston’s restaurant and lounge and age gracefully. Hershel would run the college until he died but establish a fine school that focused on the important things. T Dog would take over when he finally passed. Andrea, who always had a little traitorous gold digger in her, would eventually wind up with Merle, just as she deserved, and have eleven children, all boys.

Michonne would miss them altogether and eventually find her way to Florida, where she’d hook up with a super tough gang of do gooders who emerged from the ruins of Miami and called themselves The Jedi Muthafuckaz. They would cut a swath across the wrecked face of America, leaving medical supplies, books, seeds, and dead villains in their wake, before finally taking on the worst group to emerge in the Zombie Apocalypse- The Blue Prophets, a crazed pack of pampered high tech Soylent Green cannibals headed by Jeff Bezos. Michonne would perish in the final battle to destroy that phony utopia, but she’d take the cannibal-in-chief with her in an epic crescendo of red. Morgan would look for Rick but eventually he’d go crazy, then come all the way back around to semi-sane and live as a hermit mystic who dolled out questionable and unsolicited medical advice to the rare passing stranger. Eugene, Abraham and Rosita would continue to DC until Abraham died. Eugene would spill the beans at that point and Rosita would gun him down like a rabid dog for lying to them. She’d eventually join the Jedis and hook up with Jack Black, who lived and prospered heroically, the only celebrity to do so. Poor Gabriel would never redeem himself and die on top of that boulder.

So, mostly really bad for everyone, with a touch of good for Daryl’s ragtag band of desperados. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I’d probably watch The Walking Dead either way.

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