The Civic Republic is the next big bad of The Walking Dead universe, not just for the main show but also the spinoffs. It was a long road to get here.
The Walking Dead is ending after season 11, but the franchise will continue on through several spinoffs, including Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: World Beyond and the upcoming Tales of the Walking Dead. And for all those shows to coexist, you need a deep and sturdy mythology, something the franchise has been building for a long time!
One of the newer additions is the Civil Republic, a fairly advanced civilization by The Walking Dead’s standards, although of course, it can still pose a danger to our heroes. The Civic Republic has been teased for years: their symbol of three intertwined circles can be seen on the helicopter that airlifts away Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in season 9. The Civic Republic Military (CRM) are also set to appear in season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead, and we’re learning lots about them on World Beyond. And then all of this Civic Republic stuff will come together in the upcoming movies about Rick.
According to AMC chief content officer Scott M. Gimple, he’s been developing the Civic Republic lore for a while. “A big part of [World Beyond] came from the mythology that I was speculatively putting together back in season six and seven of The Walking Dead,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “That started coming into my mind because it was the possibility of Andy Lincoln going away , which was very much in my head.”
"But as the Three Circles mythology got more and more built up and it fleshed out, it’s a very big mythology and it became apparent that, even with the way that Rick Grimes is tied up in all of it, there was another avenue to explore…And as the ideas of the characters were coming together for World Beyond, it seemed very interesting to marry them. But the characters from World Beyond were coming first and the general situation that they were in, but the general situation they were in really did seem in line with some aspects of the Three Circles mythology."
In terms of the bigger picture, The Walking Dead likes to drop a lot of hints and small details, both for things that ultimately come to fruition and things that can nowhere. According to Gimple, that’s all deliberate. “The way I’ve always approached the story, even as a writer-producer, before I was a showrunner, when I did not even have the last say on where things were going, I still was trying to come up and plant seeds towards other ways the story could go,” he said. “And other things you build up in your mind and maybe they come to pass the way that you think they’re going to come to pass, or maybe they don’t, but you just bank those ideas or you move them in other directions. There’s all sorts of things in The Walking Dead that went that way.”
We’re definitely getting more information about the Civic Republic as the episodes go on. World Beyond, for all of its critics, has been brilliant at showing the inner workings of this huge civilization. If you’re interested in learning what the Rick Grimes movies might entail, it’s the perfect show to watch right now.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond is currently airing its first season, Sundays on AMC!
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