Fans of The Walking Dead might have been a bit surprised to see Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in the series finale, tossing a letter in a bottle from some random shore. They knew that Rick lived through the bridge incident in Season 9 that signaled Lincoln’s departure from the original series, but weren’t sure exactly what happened to him. There were plans to extend Rick’s story via a feature film, but that morphed into the limited series The Ones Who Live.
THE WALKING DEAD: THE ONES WHO LIVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “I tried. Please know I tried,” says the voice of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). We pull back and see the back of his head. He’s staring out a window where the view is operating windmills. There’s a report on the television.
The Gist: Five years after the incident at the bridge, we know that Rick is still alive, as he was lifted off the exploding bridge by Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) flying a CRM helicopter. We also know that he’s been sending notes in bottles to his wife, Michonne Hawthorne (Danai Gurira), hoping beyond hope that she finds them. But we also know that he’s considered a consignee in the CRM, destined to kill walkers that are just outside the gates for at least six years before he’s let into their secret city, which looks a whole lot like Philadelphia.
What else do we know? He has no desire to be there, because he knows Michonne and his daughter Judith (Cailey Fleming) are out there. He’s tried to escape many times; the fourth escape being the most extreme one yet. But he has someone on his side: Donald Okafor (Craig Tate). He sees something in Rick, which is why he keeps him on consignment duty, along with Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt), another recruit. He’s vouching for the two of them with the head of the military, Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn).
Rick takes the offhanded advice of fellow consignee Esteban Garcia (Frankie Quinones), who’s done his six years and is now getting a job in the city, and finally gives in to Okafor’s entreaties to join the CRM’s military. But Rick is joining because he feels it might be a better way for him to make his way out.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is, of course, the latest entry in the TWD franchise; this limited series, created by Scott Gimple, Gurira and Lincoln, was supposed to be a feature film before it was converted into a limited series.
Our Take: Let’s boil down what TWD: The Ones Who Live is really about: It’s about the love story between Rick and Michonne, how they make their way back to each other in a chaotic, fractured, walker-filled world, and how the two of them try to rebuild what they had before Rick blew up that bridge. The rest of the story, involving the various paramilitary organizations and societies that each character became a part of in the interim, feels like eyewash to us.
Rick and Michonne were always among the strongest characters the franchise has had; in fact, much of the original series was told from Rick’s perspective, from the first episode until Lincoln left in Season 9. The developing love story between him and Michonne, and the fact that Michonne became a de factor mother to both Judith and Carl (Chandler Riggs), lent an increasingly grim show some humanity, especially in the wake of other couples being torn apart. So the fans are waiting to see the two of them get back together, no matter how it happens or what they’ve been doing in the years since the bridge.
The first episode of this spinoff reminds the franchise’s fans that Rick had one of the strongest survival instincts of anyone in the original group, and there are moments in this episode where he seems despondent and ready to end it all but doesn’t, because for some reason he still has that infinitesimal glimmer of hope that Michonne is still out there. It’s why we see him dreaming about meeting Michonne in a pre-walker world and continuing the meet-cute as if they were in some surreal romcom. His drive is just that strong.
Yes, it’s always interesting to see the societies that crop up in the face of this zombie apocalypse, and it seems that the CRM is one of the strongest, though by the end of the first episode, one of its triumvirate of cities is in trouble. And we love seeing actors like Terry O’Quinn make their way into the TWD universe; his presence as Major General Beale is one that’s likely going to loom over the series. But the heart of The Ones Who Live is Rick and Michonne, and we want to see the hopeful tone of their relationship cuts through the blood and grimness.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: We can’t discuss the parting shot, as it’s a huge spoiler.
Sleeper Star: We’ll put O’Quinn in this category because he always has an authoritative presence, no matter what character he plays. This time, his character actually has the authority that matches O’Quinn’s presence.
Most Pilot-y Line: It’s interesting that no one actually says the world “Philadelphia” when the “hidden city” is so obviously Philly.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is basically a love story wrapped in the usual TWD post-apocalyptic shell. But what we hope is that the love story breaks through that shell and shows us something we haven’t seen from the franchise before.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
