'The Ones Who Live' Season 1: An Info Update (January 2024)

Rick Grimes disappeared over five real-time years ago from The Walking Dead in the middle of Season 9. Since that time, AMC has made no secret of the character eventually returning. This was reportedly supposed to happen in multiple movies, and as you know, the world went into nearly as much chaos as these characters experience. Several years and several spinoffs later, Rick is finally coming back, long after we received confirmation that he was still living, stuck within CRM custody, and hating every moment.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will reunite Rick and Michonne after she left the kids behind and set out to find him. This happened, of course, years after he fell off a horse ^^ and ended up impaled, escaped from a horde of walkers, and blew up a bridge to save his people. Then Jadis whisked him onto a CRM helicopter, and that was all she wrote for awhile. Now, let’s catch up on what to expect from the upcoming series.

Plot

The Ones Who Live will run semi-concurrently with the Dead City and Daryl Dixon shows, along with the end of Fear the Walking Dead. Whether or not that means there will be any reunions (beyond Rick and Michonne) on this show remains to be seen. Daryl and Carol are off in France at present, so there won’t be bromantic hugs in this first season, which is sad.

Additionally, this spinoff’s title leans hard into a remnant from The Walking Dead‘s final season, which ran with the recurrent “The Ones Who Live” mantra. The below synopsis also (paradoxically?) questions whether Rick is one of the so-called “walking dead” already even though his bod is still kicking. And this sort-of evokes the I Am Legend novel’s revelation of the lead character being the actual monster after the undead became the ruling civilization on earth:

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead… And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive — or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead?

Does this suggestion squash any attempt for Rick to live a peaceful life after a family reunion? We shall see.

First, however, Michonne will presumably save Rick’s ass after she uncovered his clues that he remained alive. He was kept in CRM servitude, and a certain sneak peak from The Ones Who Live has fueled speculation of whether or not Rick will have lost a hand, as he did in the comics.

More importantly, Rick might have fully gone off the emotional rails. He’d already headed in that direction more than once during his final seasons on the original series, and honestly, I’m surprised that he kept functioning after Negan broke him. That situation turned around, but Rick’s been gone for many years, away from his literal and adoptive families. Perhaps Michonne can bring him back around to being his normal self, but the synopsis suggests that their reunion might not be smooth sailing.

Thus far, none of the new spinoffs have called it quits after one season, and presumably, there will also be a second season for Rick and Michonne. Perhaps all of the shows will eventually collide, too.

Cast

Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) will now make her third series appearance in The Walking Dead after already surfacing in The World Beyond. Other survivors on the scene include Nat (Matt Jeffries) and an antagonist named Pearl Thorne (Lesley Ann Brandt).

Since we haven’t clarified this already, Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira will obviously reprise their Rick and Michonne roles.