How A Death In This Week’s Episode Set Up Two Potential Storylines On ‘The Walking Dead’

SPOILERS

In this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Monsters,” we saw Aaron’s boyfriend Eric succumb to injuries sustained in last week’s shoutout with the Saviors. It was an upsetting scene, mostly for Aaron, who lost the love of his life. Eric was largely an unremarkable character on the series, so the only sadness most viewers felt was for Aaron, who had to watch his boyfriend shamble away as a zombie.

The death of Eric, however, opens up a couple of possibilities. The first rest on a heartbreaking but completely plausible fan theory circulating right now. The theory posits — with convincing evidence — that the little blond girl we see with Rick in the time jump is not his daughter Judith, but rather Grace, the baby Rick rescued from a Savior compound in this week’s episode.

After Eric’s death, Aaron insisted upon taking baby Grace back to the Kingdom, which definitely puts Grace in play for the future of the series (the fact that the baby is being taken to the Hilltop is not an issue because most of the survivors of the All Out War will all make their way to Alexandria). The Walking Dead is not a series with a lot of bandwidth for children, so the survival of Grace is not arbitrary, and it’s looking all the more probable that Rick and Michonne eventually take the baby in and raise her (and conversely, that Judith is killed this season). A siege upon Alexandria, after all, is all but inevitable.

Meanwhile, the other potential storyline comes straight out of the comics, so:

SPOILERS for The Walking Dead Comics, Knowledge of Which May Result in Multiple Spoilers for The Walking Dead TV Series
With Eric out of the picture, Aaron is also single again. Don’t expect him to hook up with anyone else soon — he needs some time to grieve and move on– but after the time jump, Aaron does find someone else. It doesn’t happen until Issue #169 in the comics — after the All Out War, the time jump, and the Whisperer War — but Aaron eventually hooks up with Jesus, as evidenced by this exchange between Jesus and Rick:

In other words, the end of one relationship means the beginning of another — in a few years, at least. Don’t expect it to happen until the year 2020 or so, but with The Walking Dead running for potentially decades, there will be plenty of time for fans to ship Aaron and Jesus.

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