How Long Was Rick Grimes In A Coma On The Walking Dead?

In the golden age of television kicked off in the 2000s, few shows found the level of success that “The Walking Dead” did. Based on writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore’s Image Comics series of the same name, the series was adapted for the small screen by AMC with thrilling results (at least in the early seasons, anyhow). Not only did the show last 11 seasons, airing more than 170 episodes, but it spawned an entire universe of shows that are still going strong to this day.

It all started with that brilliant pilot episode titled “Days Gone Bye,” still regarded as one of the best in the history of “The Walking Dead,” which sees Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes waking up from a coma only to discover that the world has been overrun by zombies. As society crumbled, Rick sat there in his hospital bed. But how is it that Rick survived with no medical support? More importantly, how long was Rick actually in that coma? There’s a lot to it, actually, even if the answer to the question itself is somewhat straightforward.

Rick waking up from his coma sets up the events of “The Walking Dead” season 1, which is still viewed as the high point of the series. It’s a truly brilliant way to kick things off, not unlike the way director Danny Boyle kicks off “28 Days Later.” But just how long did Rick have to languish in that hospital bed while the world fell apart around him? In a 2015 interview with Business Insider, “Fear the Walking Dead” showrunner Dave Erickson explained, with a relative amount of precision, how long Rick was in his coma.

“Robert has said for him, the coma, Rick was probably out four to five weeks. If you count the days of season one of our show, we’re probably around week three [by the end of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ season 1].”

So there we have it. But there is still another burning question that needs answering. It’s not just the length of time, but how on Earth Rick survived without fluids or hospital support. AMC actually answered that in a roundabout way, with a webisode titled “The Oath.” That webisode shows us a character named Gale Marcones, a doctor who stayed at the hospital Rick was at even as the outbreak got underway.

In short, this selfless doctor is the main reason that Rick managed to stay alive during his coma. So, even within the realm of something as unrealistic as a zombie apocalypse, AMC and the creative team behind the show did put some thought into how Rick survived, even if there wasn’t room to showcase that in the show itself.

As mentioned earlier, “The Walking Dead” universe is now rather expansive. It includes several shows, some of which only ran for a brief time like the 2022 anthology show “Tales of the Walking Dead,” which had just a single season. Then there’s “Fear the Walking Dead,” a show that had a remarkably successful run. It was the first spin-off of the main series and, to date, by far the most fruitful for AMC.

“Fear the Walking Dead” ran for eight seasons, with the final episode airing in late 2023. The show centered on a new cast of characters in a new setting. While the main series largely took place in and around Atlanta, Georgia, the spin-off takes place in Los Angeles, California, and shows us what happened at the very beginning of the outbreak in one of the world’s most populated cities. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Rick Grimes but there is the question of when during the events of the show Rick awakes from his coma.

The folks at Uproxx did a breakdown of the franchise timeline in 2019 to help clarify some things for viewers. Day 0 is essentially the beginning of “Fear the Walking Dead” when zombies first start popping up. The outlet then pegs Rick’s reawakening date at day 59. That lines up with Kirkman’s timeline, as Rick ended up in the hospital after zombies had started popping up but before the issue became truly huge. The outlet then outlines that the “Fear the Walking Dead” season 3 finale happens on day 64.

Using that timeline, we can estimate within a day or two that Rick woke up from his coma around “Fear the Walking Dead” season 3, episode 10, which was titled “The Diviner.” In short, Rick’s journey began halfway across the country pretty well into this show’s run.

“The Walking Dead” began life as a comic book published by Image beginning with the first issue in October 2003. Robert Kirkman was the sole writer of the book the whole way through, with Tony Moore handling the artwork for the first six issues. After that, a series of artists lent their talents to the book until its end.

That end came somewhat abruptly in 2019 when Kirkman revealed, out of nowhere, that “The Walking Dead” would conclude with issue #193. After 16 years, that was that. The show, meanwhile, began its run in 2010 after a somewhat lengthy development process. At one point, NBC was going to make the show, albeit a version that would have been radically different from the one we got.

While “The Walking Dead” series finale was different from the ending of the comics, there were plenty of moments ripped directly from the pages of the book, particularly in the earlier seasons. Rick’s coma was, indeed, something that was pulled directly from the source material. This was not a plot device cooked up by AMC or showrunner Frank Darabont for the sake of TV. It was, rather, an attempt to do a faithful adaptation of the book.

Just for fun, it’s probably worth talking about a theory that was floating around for some time regarding Rick’s coma. For quite some time, many fans were convinced that the entirety of “The Walking Dead” was only happening in Rick’s mind. The idea is that he was still in the hospital in a coma. Kirkman didn’t let that theory last too long, eventually debunking it personally.

“Going on record to answer this: Rick is NOT still in a coma. The events of TWD are definitely happening,” Kirkman said on X/Twitter in 2014, debunking the then-popular fan theory. So Rick’s coma was real, and it is central to the vast, sprawling universe this zombie comic inspired. 

“The Walking Dead” is streaming on AMC+, or you can grab the entire series on Blu-ray via Amazon.