‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’: Everything to Know Before Rick and Michonne’s Reunion

So, Rick and Michonne are back. Where did they go in the first place, you ask? Great question! 

Let’s assume you’re a lapsed Walking Dead viewer who wants to hop into The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, AMC’s limited series that reunites Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira for the first time since their characters departed the flagship show in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Good news: you don’t need to go back and binge all 177 episodes of the zombie franchise to get set up for the new show. You certainly could, if you want to. You could just watch a couple of key episodes if you wish, too. Or, you can read on for a refresher on where things stand for Rick, Michonne and the greater Walking Dead world.

Beginning with the most basic of basics, Lincoln’s Rick Grimes and Gurira’s Michonne exist in a post-apocalyptic landscape, with society all but completely destroyed at the hungry maws of the undead. Over the course of eight seasons, the two were part of a group of survivors who jumped from safe haven to safe haven, losing loved ones all along the way, including but not limited to Rick’s wife and son. During this time, Rick and Michonne’s relationship evolved from warriors on the same battlefield, to lovers in the same bedroom. They fought and forged their way through a vicious war with a rival community, defying the odds at most every turn, because, after all, they are “the ones who live.”

Until they weren’t.

Five episodes deep into season nine, Lincoln departed The Walking Dead, and the news of his looming exit was widely known in advance. Most onlookers assumed he would die. They were wrong. Instead, he was severely injured and presumed dead following a bridge explosion, after Rick made a sacrifice play to keep his people safe. He survived the explosion, was found and recovered by the sometimes-villain Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh, who reprises the role in The Ones Who Live), and placed on a helicopter headed toward parts unknown. Everyone Rick left behind believed him dead… even if some of them never quite gave up hope.

Where did Rick wind up? The Ones Who Live will solidly reply to that question, but other shows in the Walking Dead universe have built the runway toward the answer. Between Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond (which also features McIntosh’s Jadis in a late-stage antagonist role), the franchise’s overseer Scott M. Gimple introduced the idea of the Civic Republic, the last known advanced civilization on Earth, consisting of three cities that are fully operational and working toward restoring society for future generations. More to the point, there’s the Civic Republic Military, or the CRM, an armed forces ostensibly created to keep folks safe, despite the fact that they’re actually quite vicious and tend to kill lots of people, including burning one of the three aforementioned cities all the way to the ground for… well, reasons. What’s the CRM’s overall agenda, and what do their inner-workings look like? The Ones Who Live stands to finally fill in those blanks, with Rick right in the center of the action.

So, that’s Mister Grimes. How about Michonne? Following Rick’s “death,” the flagship Walking Dead series immediately jumped forward several years into the future. Subsequent episodes featured flashbacks to those lost years, in which both Michonne and Daryl (Norman Reedus) regularly searched their surroundings for any sign of Rick, and never finding anything. Except, Michonne eventually does find something: an iPhone, with an illustration of Michonne and their daughter Judith etched into the screen. It’s an actual sign of life, the first evidence Michonne has found that Rick is still alive. While her community back home fights yet another war, Michonne takes this opportunity to hit the road, entrusting Daryl with caring for Judith and her son RJ (who Rick does not yet know about) while she goes off to track down her lost love.

And, that’s it! That’s really all you need to know to be set up well for The Ones Who Live. All the action that follows Rick and Michonne exiting the original series are not likely to come into play here, at least not majorly, though the bullet points are: 1) Their friends at Alexandria are mostly all still alive 2) The community is thriving in conjunction with another bigger community called The Commonwealth and 3) A couple of folks have gone off on other journeys; see The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon for more on that front.

If anything from those shows comes into play here in Rick and Michonne’s much-hyped reunion (remember when this was supposed to be a trilogy of movies?), be sure to come back here; we’ll have you covered on all things Walking Dead, all season long.

The six-episode season of The Ones Who Live releases weekly on Sundays starting Feb. 25 on AMC and AMC+.