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This article is about the Novel Series character. You may be looking for his Road to Survival counterpart. For other pages with the same name, see: Nick

Have mercy on us all!
―Nick's final words to Philip.[src]

Nick Parsons is a main character and Philip Blake's old friend in The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. He is described as "a compact, lean thirty-something with the kind of prep school grooming and marine-cut hair of an eternal jock." He is the religious one of the bunch and is considered the most humane.

Pre-Apocalypse[]

Waynesboro, Georgia[]

Little is known about Nick's life prior to or as the outbreak began. As a teenager, Nick went to Burke County High School with his two friends, Philip Blake and Bobby Marsh. He also used to go night hunting wild hogs with his father and uncle Verne. At some point, he was an all-state second baseman, and loved drinking with friends.

Post-Apocalypse[]

Rise of the Governor[]

"The Hollow Men"[]

Once the dead began to rise, Philip Blake picked up his two old friends along with his daughter and brother and started to make their way to Atlanta to find a refuge center. Along the way, the group stop at the Wiltshire Estates for supplies. Once in the Estates Nick, Bobby Marsh and Philip all work to clear out a house to stay for the night. After the group finish Nick and his friends share a beer and discuss their plans for the future and Philip convinces them to make Wilshire a permanent settlement. Over the next couple days, Nick helps Philip make a fence and protect their house. Eventually, Bobby is bitten by a walker while he is working with Philip to clear the fences outside. After Bobby is buried, Philip, Nick, Philip's brother, Brian Blake, and Philip's daughter Penny Blake, continue to travel to Atlanta.

While driving toward Atlanta, Nick and the group had to stop because the Suburban they had been driving was stuck in the mud. After an attack from the undead drawn by a gunshot, the group decides to sleep in an abandoned school bus. While on watch, Nick fiddles with radio but finds only static. The next morning, Nick helps to move supplies into a new vehicle. After a few miles, the road becomes impossible to drive through due to an abundance of wreaks, so the group travels the rest of the way on foot, only stopping at night to take refuge in a paper factory.

"Atlanta"[]

After a run-in with an undead cop, the group hides in a local gas station. Nick and Philip find a muscle car inside and push it into the street. After piling it with supplies, Philip drives the car as fast as possible through crowds to go downtown toward the safe zones; unfortunately for Nick's group, however, their vehicle's tires become slick with gore, causing the vehicle to crash into a building. After escaping and having nowhere to go, a woman named April Chalmers calls for them off the street to take refuge with her sister Tara Chalmers and old and sickly father David Chalmers. After a bit of uneasiness between both parties, the two groups form a close bond with one another which starts to form a family in Philips's mind. Nick, after a while, gets his own room where he reads his Bible passages and thinks of new ideas on how to get supplies other than searching their own building. Nick then comes up with the idea to build a bridge to the building across from them and become the group's scout. Nick eventually becomes more and more bold, which eventually leads him to setting up several safe zones leading down the street in case they ever needed a quick getaway.

As it turns out, they needed to leave quicker then he expected when Tara Chalmers forces Philip Blake's group to leave after Philip rapes April Chalmers due to his liking for her. While furious and wanting to take April's apartment complex by force, Philip says that there is nothing left in Atlanta and leads Nick and the rest out of Atlanta using Nick's safe zones. Near the end of the safe zones, they find a motorcycle dealership, which allows Philips' group to finally leave Atlanta without ever looking back.

"Chaos Theory"[]

After leaving Atlanta, Philip leads his group to a home in the middle of a giant peach orchard field a little over fifty miles from Atlanta. While the situation seems ideal, Brian Blake notes how he thinks they were followed to the house and claims that he sees flashes of lights outside at night. As a safety precaution, they set up tin cans as noise traps to warn them ahead of time of any invaders. The night comes when Tommy and his band of Home Invaders surround the house and attempt to take the house by force. After a deal is made which would allow Philips's group to escape, Tommy decides to double-cross Philips's group and have them hunted down. During the hunt, Philip and Nick manage to gain the upper hand on the attackers and manage to kill all of the home invaders except "Sonny" and "Cher". Near the end of the battle, however, Penny Blake is shot and killed by a home invader, which drives Philip to extreme rage and insanity. Philip's relentless insanity becomes the driving wedge between Nick and Philip's friendship. Nick is seriously against Philip's choice of keeping Penny around in her zombified form, to which Philip refuses to budge on his choice. Another straw that scares Nick is finding out that the two home invaders that were captured were being slowly tortured by Philip as well. After euthanizing the two home invaders, Nick almost stays behind when Philip starts to lead the group elsewhere away from the house filled with bad memories for them all. Nick only agrees to come to watch over Brian and not be alone.

After arriving at Woodbury with Penny Blake stashed in the woods, Nick's personality starts taking extremes. His religious ideas start to become more and more prominent as his love for his friend Philip diminishes further and further. Taking the room next to Philips' and Brian's, Brian finds out that Philip has stashed Penny in their new apartment living room. After telling Nick, he decides to hide with Brian in his room. They overhear Philip feeding Penny human flesh and after confronting Philip, he tells them that the body parts are from dead corpses and no one would notice. This causes Nick to almost leave for a second time, only being stopped by Brian's begging and reminding him of his longstanding friendship with Philip.

Everything eventually comes to an end however once Nick sees Philip kidnapping a young woman (who later turns out to be the daughter of a man named Jim Bridges) and taking her to the woods. Nick then grabs Brian and heads off to where Nick saw Philip last, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun in tow in an attempt to stop Philip. When they all meet up in the field, it becomes clear that Philip plans on chopping the young woman up to feed to his zombified daughter. Nick points his gun at Philip, claiming that Philip has the Devil in him and it is only right that he dies. Brian tries to keep the peace but Philip tells Brian that Nick has always been a talker, and not a doer. Philip then starts dragging the young woman into the woods to which Nick replies "have mercy on us all" and shoots Philip fatally in the back, sending out half of his brain stem through the front of his throat while also accidentally shooting the young woman by hitting her in the side of the scalp, killing her instantly.

Nick then starts breaking down and wailing while saying gibberish though his tears of prayer and pleading. Brian Blake at this time is so filled rage seeing his brother gunned down, he takes out his .38 and shoots Nick Parsons point blank in the side of his head without hesitation.

The Fall of the Governor - Part Two[]

"Battlefield"[]

While in and out of consciousness, Brian Blake dreams about his childhood home in Waynesboro burning down as he frantically searches for Philip. He enters a glowing hatch and finds himself in the garage stall where Michonne was being tortured and the place radiates pure, unadulterated, preternatural evil. He wants out, badly and enters another glowing portal leading to a worse place - a death scene. Nick emerges from the trees in the clearing with his 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, his face a sweaty mask of horror. He asks the lord to forgive him as he raises the muzzle up to Brian, and pulls the trigger. Brian feels himself die as he wakes back up as Philip Blake.

Death[]

Killed By

Brian is so furious after Nick kills his brother that he kills Nick by shooting him in the head at point blank range. It is this altercation that ultimately leads to Brian's transformation from Brian Blake into Philip.

Killed Victims[]

This list shows the victims Nick has killed:

Relationships[]

Philip Blake

Though both lived in the same area and went to school together, the ensuing traumas of the apocalypse drove Nick into closer commradery with Brian, the last "sane one" he saw within their group. As Philip's actions led to their "eviction" from the Chalmers apartment, Nick began slowly losing his edge and tried convincing Brian that his brother was going insane. After the death and reanimation of Penny, Philip brutally beats Brian for losing sight of her. Nick is the one to help the latter heal and rehabilitate, informing him of his brother's deranged activities with Penny's surviving attackers. Brian shares Nick's concerns when Philip brings along the reanimated Penny until they arrive at Woodbury when things come to a serious head. Nick and Brian discover Philip killing survivors to feed to a zombified Penny, going as far as to come across his latest victim. Nick tries to stop him but winds up killing the victim and mortally injuring Philip before losing his mind himself, prompting the tired and hardened Brian to shoot Nick in the head.

Brian Blake

Even though Nick was initially the best friend of Philip and Bobby Marsh, the ensuing traumas of the apocalypse drove Nick into closer commradery with Brian, the last "sane one" he saw within their group. As Philip's actions lead to their "eviction" from the Chalmers apartment, Nick began slowly losing his edge and tried convincing Brian that his brother was going insane. After the death and reanimation of Penny, Philip brutally beats Brian for losing sight of her. Nick is the one to help the latter heal and rehabilitate, informing him of his brothers deranged activities with Penny's surviving attackers. Brian shares Nick's concerns when Philip brings along the reanimated Penny until they arrive at Woodbury when things come to a serious head. Nick and Brian discover Philip killing survivors to feed to a zombified Penny, going as far as to come across his latest victim. Nick tries to stop him but winds up killing the victim and mortally injuring Philip before losing his mind himself, prompting the tired and hardened Brian to shoot Nick in the head.

Penny Blake

Nick and Penny had an uncle-niece relationship. Penny referred to Nick as 'uncle Nick' at several occasions. The two of them played together several times. After the death of Penny, Nick felt sad, both for himself, but mostly for Philip. He wanted to put down the reanimated girl, but this idea was scrapped by Philip.

Bobby Marsh

Nick was friends with both Bobby and Philip in high school. When the outbreak began, Philip gathered his family and friends including Bobby in an effort to find a safe zone. When the group arrive at the Wiltshire Estates, Bobby is bitten by a hidden former resident of the home they were staying at. Bobby then dies and has his brain destroyed by Philip before reanimation. The group including Nick, decide to move on towards the rumored Atlanta safe zone after a burial for Bobby.

Verne

Due to Verne being the uncle of Nick, the two of them are believed to have had a good and strong relationship. Nick often went hunting with Verne, which also hints at their good relationship.

April, Tara and David Chalmers

Nick and the Chalmers were aware of each other, but they are never seen interacting directly. Nick was sorry for Tara and April after David died, but wasn't personally affected. When Philip was kicked out of the apartment complex, Nick didn't get the choice to stay. 

Sonny and Cher

Even though the two raiders were indirectly responsible for Penny's death, Nick kept his humanity and ended the prisoner's suffering. He did this not because he felt sorry for them, but simply because he felt like it was the right, Christian thing to do.

Bruce Cooper and Gabriel Harris

Even though Nick found Bruce and Gabe threatening in the beginning, he came to trust them, and moved into Woodbury.


Appearances[]

Novel Series

Rise of the Governor

  • "The Hollow Men"
    • "Chapter One"
    • "Chapter Two"
    • "Chapter Three"
    • "Chapter Four"
    • "Chapter Five"
    • "Chapter Six"
    • "Chapter Seven"
    • "Chapter Eight"
  • "Atlanta"
    • "Chapter Nine"
    • "Chapter Ten"
    • "Chapter Eleven"
    • "Chapter Twelve"
    • "Chapter Thirteen"
    • "Chapter Fourteen"
    • "Chapter Fifteen"
    • "Chapter Sixteen"
  • "Chaos Theory"
    • "Chapter Seventeen"
    • "Chapter Eighteen"
    • "Chapter Nineteen"
    • "Chapter Twenty"
    • "Chapter Twenty-One"
    • "Chapter Twenty-Two"

The Fall of the Governor - Part Two

Novels 1 2 3 4 5
Rise of the Governor
The Road to Woodbury
The Fall of the Governor
Descent
Invasion
Search and Destroy
Return to Woodbury
Appears Voice is heard
👁 Appears with no lines Appears in a flashback
Appears as a walker 🖼 Appears in a photograph/video
Appears as a corpse Appears in a hallucination/dream

Trivia[]

  • Nick is the first victim of Brian Blake.
  • Nick makes a cameo in the mobile game Road to Survival.

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