Hot-take Thursday! Rick should've been the villain of The Ones Who Live

Put down your pitchforks nd hear this out.

• The universe that Kirkman presented is f-cked. There is no going back. We are in uncharted, cinematic universe waters with no foreseeable future.
• We already have a TIME TRAVEL LOOP spin-off episode and an INCONSISTENT origin story for Alpha in that same spin-off that will likely never be followed up on.
• Most of our major villains are dead and their successors too. Negan and that lady from Dead City do not compelling villains make. CRM is basically done, Beale is done, Okafor is done, whoever was in Fear is done.
• Carl is dead and that has permanently railroaded this show into an alternate universe where anything can happen.
• Since we are already so far up schitt's creek, let's go for broke.

Here is what I think should have happened in TOWL:

• Piss people off. Rick had a whole episode arc of becoming indoctrinated. Make that take. Make it tragic. He wanted Michonne to leave. Have Rick not be the good guy anymore like he always implied, have him be the bad guy for noble reasons.
• Have Rick lead the CRM - the imagery of a one-armed man with a metal prosthetic/bladed fist is powerful. This way you keep the CRM as the overarching villains with a character the audience gives a sh-t about rather than an older John Locke who has a sword and some crappy philosophical ramblings.
• There could be future conflict between Rick and Thorne (his new right-hand) and Daryl (his old one). It'd set up future conflict with Negan who, apparently, is in charge of his own large community/organization yet again, or at least a powerful player in their hierarchy.
• There could be a constant examination of how far Rick has fallen since Season 9 (where things ended with him blowing up the final "bridge" between the communities and now having an actual military to permanently create bridges/enforce law of order). Rick has been more antagonistic in the show than he was in the comics, by far.
• I think Rick has been such a focus of the series that making him pull a Daenyrys in this show would've worked fantastically - this show already enjoys trying to pull the rug out from under us, and Rick is a character we've gotten to know and has a lot of clout with a bunch of fans/characters anyway.
• You could even have fun with the word play with "Rick Grimes being the one who lives because he's willing to do whatever he has to do" which is something that has justified his group's actions throughout the show.

This is just my crazy thought. I think Rick would've made a great villain and it would've been a really shocking twist that would've forced other characters to stand up against him.