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Of the three Walking Dead spin-offs to debut following the main series’ finale in 2022, surely The Ones Who Live had the most interest around it, and it’s easy to see why. It is, after all, the “one with Rick and Michonne.” While Maggie and Negan’s Dead City and the simply titled Daryl Dixon each had their own conceptual merits, this is the one that has the most mass appeal and could pull lapsed fans back into The Walking Dead Universe (TWDU), as AMC calls it. But it would need to be high-quality, too. Fortunately, it is good–in the four episodes I’ve seen anyway.
The Ones Who Live has a lot of catching up to do given the multiple time-jumps this series has undergone since Rick, and later Michonne, departed the main series, and it smartly uses the early portion of its six-episode season to do just that. The burning question on my mind has long been, “What could possibly have kept Rick from getting home?” Michonne went looking for him, so naturally she won’t return empty-handed, but for Rick to stay away from his loved ones for so long strained credulity given how he’s been characterized for over a decade on the show. As it turns out, this is the crux of the first season of this spin-off.
As soon as the opening scene, it’s obvious why Rick hasn’t been back home, and that conflict sets up an intriguing drama for the star-crossed lovers that really lets Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira soak up their iconic roles once more. They’re excellent actors, and their presence in this world has been sorely missed. As a longtime viewer, it’s great to have them back, but it’s even better that they return with a compelling rift driving them apart.
