The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Review: Epic, Emotional, and Explosive

"It was always about getting back to you," Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes intones in voiceover to Danai Gurira's Michonne on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. AMC's new spinoff series – which Lincoln and Gurira co-created with TWD Universe chief and former showrunner Scott M. Gimple – was always about the indomitable "Richonne" love story, literally left up in the air after Lincoln and Gurira each departed the zombie drama before the end of its 11-season run. First announced as a Walking Dead movie trilogy, Rick and Michonne make their long-awaited returns in the strikingly cinematic six-episode series premiering February 25th. Intense and intimate, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is epic, emotional, and explosive television. 

Years after Rick sacrificed himself by leading a walker horde to a bridge he then blew up to save his family and friends in The Walking Dead Season 9, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live picks up with Rick at the C.R.P.: The Civic Republic of Philadelphia. Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) secretly saved-slash-stole Rick from the riverbed and shuttled him away aboard a helicopter piloted by the Civic Republic Military, the mysterious three-rings group that operates with a code: "Security and secrecy above all." No one leaves or escapes, ever, explaining Rick's eight-year absence. Now toiling away culling walkers (called "delts") as Consignee Grimes, he's under the charge of CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (a commanding Craig Tate), who reminds Rick: "There's no escape for the living." 

Six years after the bridge, Michonne found Rick's belongings and then embarked on a mission to find "the Brave Man" and bring him home to their children, Judith and Rick Jr. On her journey to find Rick – who she believes and hopes against hope is alive, but can't be certain — Michonne comes across two straggling strangers, Aiden (Breeda Wool) and Bailey (Andrew Bachelor), part of a mass-migrating group that never stops for anyone who falls behind. Now, with sweetly-sassy pyromaniac and tinkerer Nat (Matthew Jeffers) as her traveling companion, the katana-wielding warrior is on a collision course with the CRM. And there will be as much bloodshed as tears shed.

The 55-minute series premiere, titled "Years," reveals what happened to Rick in the years after that fateful helicopter flight. The teleplay (written by Gimple from a story he co-wrote with Lincoln and Gurira) incorporates flashbacks, time jumps, and Gimple's signature non-linear storytelling from his tenure as showrunner on Seasons 4-8 of The Walking Dead to tell a story that plays like a TV-tailored version of what the first Rick Grimes movie might have been. 

Deftly directed by Bert & Bertie (Marvel's Hawkeye, the AMC Studios-produced dystopian drama Silo), "Years" is the most cinematic piece of Walking Dead filmmaking since the Frank Darabont-directed "Days Gone Bye" pilot in 2010. Each episode feels like a mini-movie, and the Gurira-penned Episode 4 is an emotionally charged masterwork that encapsulates what The Ones Who Live is about: If you live for the ones you love, what happens when you lose them? What comes after – and what do you become? (AMC provided the first four of six episodes for review.) The post-Rick episodes of The Walking Dead asked such existential questions, but with the Civic Republic's army acting as an existential threat to Rick and Michonne's love and lives, the series digs into who these characters are apart... and who they are together.

Gimple, Gurira, and Lincoln (also executive producers) have a clear understanding of the characters Rick and Michonne, and their reunion is the fulcrum that the whole story turns on. AMC has asked that reviews not spoil how or when Rick and Michonne reunite, but it shouldn't be a spoiler to say that the Richonne-centric series doesn't keep them apart much longer. Faithful fans who have waited with breathless anticipation since 2018 to see long-lost loves Rick and Michonne together again can rest assured: it's as satisfying as you're expecting, and maybe more subversive than you're expecting. The Richonne relationship is more complicated and complex than it ever was on The Walking Dead, their circumstances the ultimate challenge to the ultimate love story. Rick and Michonne will either save the world – or burn the whole damn thing down. To quote Rick Grimes: "They're f-cking with the wrong people."

"Security and secrecy above all" also applies to the often shocking and spoiler-filled series, its propulsive storytelling and episode-ending cliffhangers sure to leave you chomping at the bit for the next 50-minute chunk of the story. It puts pedal to the metal and almost never slows down, except to flesh out its compelling characters and their dynamics. 

With its expansion of the CRM mythology that crossed over to Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond – and with enigmatic new characters like CRM Sergeant Major Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) and shadowy CRM Major General Beale (Terry O'Quinn) – The Ones Who Live plays out as a conspiracy thriller against the backdrop of the post-zombie apocalypse. Part Prison Break and part World War Z, with such influences as Casablanca and the romantic drama Somewhere in Time, this is The Walking Dead on the scope and scale of a zombie movie blockbuster. It's all superbly acted by the perfect pairing of Lincoln and Gurira.

The Walking Dead spinoffs Dead City and Daryl Dixon have revitalized and revivified AMC's long-running franchise, and the Rick and Michonne show is more proof that there's still a lot of life left in the TWD Universe. After all these years gone "bye," The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is well worth the wait.

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres February 25th on AMC and AMC+, with new episodes airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.