I Show You The Times.

I had A Friend. I don't talk about him. He was My Partner.

My Friend, His Name was Cain, 

Him and Lori…. They were together. They thought I was dead.

I know Judith isn't Mine. I know it. 

I love her. She's My Daughter, 

but she isn't mine.

I had to ACCEPT that. I did. 

So I could keep her ALIVE. 

I'll die before she does 

and I hope that's 

a long time from now, 

so I can raise her and protect her 

and teach her How to Survive. 

THIS is HOW We LIVE, now. 

I HAD to accept that, TOO,

 so I could keep everyone else ALIVE.

“It’s not Your Fault when people die.”

“SOMETIMES, it is — 

not always, but sometimes it is.”

YOU, Have to Accept This —

We, ALL Have to Accept it, 

or it WON’T WORK.”

Well, it won’t work anyway, will it? —

Not if it’s already mutated, which it has, and 

Not if The Tests don’t work, which they don’t —

Even I can see that….

Negan WANTS to Bully You, Hurt You, Take from You, 

Kill Your People and force them to Pay Tribute and 

Your Survival Strategy is to Say  “Yes, Thank You.”..?

Because Negan is just going to  kill whoever the hell he feels like — and you know that.

And because you know that, and letting him, when he does, then it really will be Your Fault.

This is why Darth Vader exists.

Darth Vader exists to keep His Children “Safe”.

By KILLING Other People’s Children.

In a World where for him, The Future, His Children, are DEAD.

carl judith the walking dead

Both of Rick's children, Carl and Judith. Gene Page/AMC

Rick's explanation to Michonne echoes what Lori said to Shane after he found out she was pregnant: that their child would always be Rick's.

"Even if it's yours, it's not gonna be yours," Lori told Shane in season two, episode seven. "It's never gonna be yours and there's nothing you can do to change that."

lori speaks to shane

AMC

Actor Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick on "The Walking Dead," explained to Entertainment Weekly that it's a moment he has known but that he's finally voicing aloud. Showrunner Scott Gimple told him about the Judith reveal before he got the first script for season seven.

"It’s one of those watershed moments that happens, certainly between the two lovers, between Michonne and Rick, that brings them together," said Lincoln. "It’s a very important moment in understanding his psyche and going, 'This is what I’ve been doing for the last two years. I’ve accepted the situation and I will accept the situation if it’s going to save lives and if it’s going to protect the people I love. I will take it.' It’s another perfect kind of quiet heroism. You know, he’s a stepdad and it doesn’t stop him loving his child, but he kind of has accepted that it’s not his."

"The choice he [Rick] made with the Saviors, it was a very, very interesting and brilliant way of echoing that heroism that he'd shown with his own child — that he had sucked it up and he just said, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I love her. She's my daughter. Even if she's not mine, she's still my daughter," Lincoln said in a taped segment on Sunday's "Walking Dead" aftershow, "Talking Dead." "I thought that was a brilliant way of explaining what Rick was enduring and capable of enduring."

Executive producer David Alpert said for Rick, the decision to reveal Judith's paternity to Michonne is about showing her what the group's priorities are at the moment. Instead of being reckless and seeking vengeance right away, they need to be mindful of what's actually important.

"[Rick] comes out of the coma, he finds his wife, he finds his kid, he finds his friend and he comes to that place and he realizes, you know what, everything else has gone away and I've found them and that's what's important," said Alpert. "Whether or not this is or is not my biological daughter is not important. This is the thing that's important. What he's trying to communicate to Michonne is, 'Listen. We have to survive another day. If we don't survive another day, then nothing matters.' That's what he's trying to get out there."

Alpert added that he didn't think there would ever be a reason for Rick to ever tell Judith that he's not her father.

"Unless she grows up and she has that big shane beard," he joked.