What happened to Heath in The Walking Dead? Character’s fate explained
The apocalyptic horror drama, The Walking Dead, has seen many characters come and go.
One of them is Heath, introduced to the show in season 6, a survivor who worked as a supply runner. The character disappeared without an explanation in one of the later episodes. With some characters returning to the spinoff, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Heath's arc may have an explanation and a closure.
For the uninitiated, The Walking Dead is an American series, presenting a world post-zombie apocalypse. The surviving humans in the destroyed world live in small communities that fight each other for survival, while the land lies strewn with zombified people, also called the walkers.
The franchise has many spinoffs, parodies and spoofs to its credit, besides the eleven seasons of the main storyline. The currently airing spinoff, The Ones Who Live, mentions both CRM and Jadis who had some connection with Heath's disappearance long ago. With this, fans may hope to get the story behind the character's sudden exit.
The Walking Dead: Who was Heath, and what happened to him?
Episode 1 of The Walking Dead season 6, titled First Time Again, introduced Heath as a resident of Alexandria Safe Zone. He met the main group after getting back from a supply run. He became an important part of the plot, pulling off major missions through success.
However, Heath, played by Corey Hawkins, was shown as a highly strung emotional person who could not accept all the death around him, although he fought bravely to Rick Grimes' bidding. He was portrayed as a soft-hearted person aiming to be good in The Walking Dead storyline, so he volunteered with Rick's plans.
On one hand, he could not come to terms with the heinous act of killing members of the Savior community while they were sleeping, one of Rick's controversial moves. On the other hand, he had a deeply emotional talk with Michonne about how he felt.
Out on a supply run with another survivor, Tara, Heath got separated as Tara returned without him.
The explanation was that he was abducted by Jadis and the Scavengers, and given to an organization in return for supplies. However, the name of the organization was not revealed.
Heath exited the show with the sudden turn of events. While the series continued till season 11, there was no mention of Heath again. Many fans following the show and the books feel Heath deserves a proper closure.
Can Heath return to The Walking Dead world again?
This might be a possibility if the makers want to bring back the character again. The good part about Heath's sudden departure from The Walking Dead was keeping the arc open-ended. With that, he can be brought back with a plausible story.
In The Ones Who Live, the plot has brought focus to CRM with Jadis as a part of it. As Jadis had a long-term contract with CRM, it seems like CRM, or Civic Republic Military, could be the organization to whom Jadis had handed Heath over.
With this story arc, Heath could be alive somewhere in the CRM base. As he was not a ruthless fighter and strategist, he may have been tagged B and not A, as Jadis is shown doing in the current spinoff.
The superior ones tagged A are taken to the labs to experiment on. However, if Heath was tagged B, he might be doing some menial work within the organization and could be brought into the main plot.
Why did Corey Hawkins' Heath exit The Walking Dead suddenly?
Corey Hawkins had too many projects on hand at the time. He needed to let go of some, and The Walking Dead was one of them. His arc may have been left open deliberately by makers to give him an entry sometime in the future.
Hawkins was seen in BlackKkKlansman and Kong: Skull Island on the big screen. He also did many shows like a 24 spinoff, 24: Legacy and Straight Outta Compton. However, fans would be happy to have him back in the franchise.
Whether Heath makes it back to the TWD universe or gets a fitting closure remains to be seen. Meanwhile, catch the season finale of The Ones Who Live to arrive on AMC on March 31, 2024.