WARNING: This article contains spoilers from The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 aired on AMC and AMC+ on February 25th. Starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira reprising their roles as Walking Dead characters, Rick and Michonne respectively, this spin-off series has been long-awaited by fans of these iconic fictional survivors. The series was created by The Walking Dead Universe chief-content-officer Scott M. Gimple, with Lincoln and Gurira as executive producers on the project, and the latter has taken on a writing responsibility as co-creator with Gimple. Episode 1 is titled, “Years.”
The writing in The Ones Who Live is top-notch! The way the plot flowed throughout this first episode was so consistent, that I felt the strongest intensity that I’ve ever experienced throughout the start of any TV series. Viewers likely found the beginning of this episode difficult to watch when Rick cut his hand off. However as someone who has read a portion of The Walking Dead comics, I definitely appreciate the way this TV franchise continues to honor its source material by loosely adapting certain elements.
I found the dream-sequences between Rick and Michonne to be quite thought-provoking. I liked the interpretation of how Rick and Michonne could’ve met in a lively city before the world ended. I wonder if it was intentional that the two of them started to fall in love soon after they first met in the “real-world dream sequence,” as that was contradicting to the flagship Walking Dead series when nothing like that really happened until they had already known each other as friends for a long time.
What was most fascinating is the mere difficulty that the Civic Republic Military has when they’re trying to break Rick and earn his loyalty. I say that because, in most Walking Dead Universe storylines, the apocalypse has been ongoing for so long that new characters the audience gets introduced to are often very skeptical of our survivors (example: Rick) and vice versa. However, a lot of the Civic Republic Military soldiers Rick was getting to know throughout this episode seemed tough, but not as wise and skeptical as Rick; it’s as if our longtime favorite characters like Rick are more difficult to break than the new people they meet. Maybe it’s convenient storytelling to work in favor of our heroes, but I feel like this enigma was indirectly acknowledged during the dream sequence when Michonne said, “We can make this whole damn world ours if we want to” because she’s somewhat metaphorically pointing out how experienced she and Rick are in navigating trauma and difficult times, possibly more so than others.
Another standout moment in this episode was when Michonne showed up at the end and started killing Rick’s fellow soldiers until the two of them see each other’s faces! I was somewhat expecting a crazy reunion for the two of them, but while watching, I was so caught up in the story, that this took me by total surprise.
Overall, “Years” was a great start to the Walking Dead spin-off that I’d been most looking forward to, and it was definitely worth the wait!
Find new episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live every Sunday on AMC and AMC+.
