The return of The Walking Dead shocked viewers with a gory threesome of character deaths, including a very graphic depiction of a 10-year-old getting eaten. This week, The Walking Dead switched it up and got sexy, delivering unto fans one of the most hotly desired ships in Tumblr history. We’re talking, of course, about Rick and Michonne finally hooking up.
The scene was apparently a little more chaste before actors Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira got to it. Via TVLine:
As the actor explains, Angela Kang and Corey Reed’s original script called for an au naturel Michonne to “cover herself” with a sheet upon jumping out of bed. “Danai said, ‘No, she wouldn’t. She’d go for her sword.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. And Rick would go for his gun. And we’d both be naked.’
“So we campaigned for the butt-crack shot [at the end],” Lincoln adds, proudly. “That wasn’t in the script. We both said, ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.’”
You gotta appreciate the actors pushing in all areas to keep the story true to their characters. They may not always win fights with showrunners — especially when it involves them dying — but I bet a lot of the small touches and flourishes we get to enjoy flow directly from the actors putting it all into bringing their characters to life.
‘Richonne’, as the up until now imaginary relationship in fans’ minds is called, could have been handled poorly … and there’s always extra criticism when the show does something like this that doesn’t occur in the comics. But with this one small change to the script, the scene with Rick and Michonne standing armed and naked may go down as an all-time favorite.
