If I were writting the show... In the last episode I'd have Rick die, then wake up in a hospital bed in Atlanta and realize he was just in a long coma from when he first got shot in the pilot. Shane, Carl, Lori and his entire family would be there. Then Beth would walk in as his nurse, and you would see that Bob from the wire is in the hospital bed next to him, and Tyrese and Sasha are visiting him... and Dale is the bed across from him... and the governer is there for an eye injury, and Andrea works at the reception desk, Glenn delivers food there, and everyone he met in the show were just people in the actial hospital because his brain was still conscious trying to process the events. Then he would realize that all the zombie stuff was his brain was trying to tell him all along he needed to die to come back to life/wake up from the coma.