‘TWD: The Ones Who Live’: Andrew Lincoln & Danai Gurira Tease Richonne’s Emotional Reunion

Relationships are one thing, but you have to really work at it to sustain them during a zombie apocalypse. The Walking Dead hero Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his determined warrior love Michonne (Danai Gurira) know that better than anyone. “They are similar in ways that no one else is. They both have this fire and this craziness, beyond their strength, things that they’re always willing to do,” notes the franchise’s chief content officer, Scott M. Gimple.

The latest TWD spinoff, The Ones Who Live — the title is a mantra that has gone beyond simple survival to signify hope, love, and perseverance — shows just how much Rick and Michonne are willing to do to hold each other again. The six-episode series brings the promise of the horror super-couple’s reunion after being apart for years, and fans couldn’t be more excited. But first, let’s remember the lead-up.

Where We Left Off

(Credit: Gene Page/AMC)

In the Mothership series’ Season 9, ex-sheriff’s deputy Rick sacrifices himself, blowing up a bridge to save his friends and family from a zombie herd. The blast doesn’t kill him, though. Instead, the injured Rick is whisked away in a helicopter by Jadis Stokes (Pollyanna McIntosh), formerly the Scavengers’ leader, Anne. In Season 10, Michonne finds Rick’s broken-in boots and more irrefutable proof that he survived. So she goes in search of her long-lost love. (He doesn’t even know they have a son!) But as fans learned in TWD’s ender, Rick has been trapped and trying to escape the powerful, organized Civic Republic Military.

Where We Begin Again

“We start at breaking points,” teases Gimple of this new chapter in Rick and Michonne’s love story. “At dark places, in dark situations.”

Despite the bleakness of their characters’ impending journeys back to each other, Lincoln and Gurira (both creators on Live with Gimple) enjoyed their return to Dead. “I’d missed [playing Rick] and everything that came with the job description,” Lincoln says. “It was relatively painless to slip back into the cowboy boots.”

For Gurira, portraying the katana-wielding badass again “felt very different and the same all at once.” She calls this Michonne the 2.0 version: “[Michonne is] stepping into very unknown terrain.”

That’s not the only new ground that’s covered. We’ve seen glimpses of the CRM via Dead and its spinoffs, particularly the 2020–21 young-adult series The Walking Dead: World Beyond, but Live goes much deeper into the military’s mythos. “The CRM is a major part of our story,” Gimple says. “And, yes, we learn a great deal more.”

(Credit: Gene Page/AMC)

Expect to see a lot of Jadis, the trickster responsible for Rick being held by the CRM. And newcomers like Lucifer’s Lesley-Ann Brandt as razor-sharp Pearl Thorne expand the regimented world. Gimple calls Thorne “formidable like Rick, and they wind up in the same circumstance because of their parallels.”

We also meet the ruthless CRM leader, Major General Beale (Lost’s Terry O’Quinn), at the secret Civic Republic site. (Fans have guessed Rick is in Philadelphia based on the decimated onscreen skyline.) “Why are you here?” he pointedly asks Rick.

Why, indeed? “This is a Rick we haven’t seen before, in no small part because of his time in the Civic Republic,” Lincoln hints.

And whether or not Rick and Michonne have changed too much is an important question, says the actor, who asks: “Will their love survive after all this time apart?” It had better — especially considering how long viewers have waited to see a passionate “Richonne” reunion kiss! Says Gurira: “The goal is that all the feels are felt — and I think we get all the feels in there.”

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Series Premiere, Sunday, February 25, 9/8c, AMC