After almost two years since the original series, The Walking Dead ended, AMC has come up with more television series to keep fans intrigued with their favorite characters like Dead City and Daryl Dixon. On February 25th, two of the most famous TWD characters, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurrira) returned to TV screens for the franchise’s newest series, The Ones Who Live.
The episode “Years” starts with a recap of their lives and then moves toward where they are now. Rick is sitting in a room. He’s holding what looks like to be a piece of glass, taking it to his neck and giving himself a cut. His facial expression is filled with sadness, worry, and regret. A title card comes up after the cut scene, which says that it’s five years since the bridge.
Here’s a little recap for those who may have forgotten. Five years ago, Rick protected his community from a deadly bomb on the bridge, allegedly sacrificing himself. But, no one knew that he survived. His friends Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) looked everywhere for him, but could not find his body. A woman named Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh), who was an enemy, found him and took him with her to a new community.
Now, five years later, the audience finds out what the community was and where it was located. Rick wears a jacket with a Borromean ring symbol patch on the sleeve. During a training session with a group of people, he’s handcuffed to a line with a guard. He fights off walkers that are on fire and when the line ends, reaching the farthest distance he can get, he debates on breaking the handcuff with his axe. He breaks down and uses the axe to slice his left hand off. Quickly after that, he tries to run away but doesn’t get too far. He goes to one of the walkers and puts his arm in the fire, to help stop the internal bleeding.
After getting tasered by one of the guards, he wakes up from a dream of him and Michonne. With Rick’s narration, we learn it’s not the first time that he’s tried to escape from the community or Army, which he considers it to be. That’s why he was connected to a guard on a leash: he can’t be trusted. He never stopped trying to go back home to Alexandria.
This community is different than the ones that were in The Walking Dead. Army is an actual city, with open resources such as helicopters and televisions. But it is completely guarded. Rick gets new armor for his hand, which has a blade built inside of it for fighting off walkers. He’s been recruited into the Army, so there’s a lot of training sessions to do.
The Lieutenant Colonel of the Civic Republic Military, Okafor (Craig Tate), helps Rick along the way. It was only right, seeing as how he’s the one who recruited him into the Army. A woman named Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) was also recruited, so she and Rick worked together on their training and new missions.
The audience is introduced to an important character, Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn). Beale asks Rick if Okafor is up to something and he tells him no. The truth is that Okafor was up to something, but only Rick and Pearl knew. Rick was planning his escape, making sure there’d be no mistakes this time.
That night, Rick attempts another escape, but his plans are foiled when a young girl finds him. Pearl is there, telling him that she saw the whole thing. She knew he was trying to escape. Rick discovers that Okafor knows about him and some of his secrets. He knows about his daughter Judith (Cailey Flemming) and Michonne.
Okafor and Rick fight until Okafor points a gun at him. He sets Rick and Pearl up for new positions as project leads on the conversion team. Pearl tells Rick that it’s his turn to make the world a better place, whether he sees it or not, it’s his destiny.
Rick writes one last letter to Michonne, but later on throws it and the other letters, into a bucket of fire, along with the phones with drawings on them. This scene is big, considering how important those items are to The Walking Dead franchise.
Throughout this episode, Rick has dreams about Michonne, but there’s no apocalypse, just the two of them as strangers, who meet each other. He has one last dream of her and as the two of them kiss, she turns into flames and he wakes up from the nightmare. The time goes to the present. He and Okafor are in a helicopter.
Rick shares a story about his father from when he was younger and it’s symbolic. Rick’s father saved him and his mother from losing their home and protected them. Rick wants to do that, that’s his purpose, his goal, to save the world. Their helicopter gets hit and Okafor gets injured, not surviving the brutal force. The helicopter crashes down. As Rick and the team escape the helicopter, an enemy comes face-to-face with Rick. They pull his mask off and as he looks at the person, he freezes. It was Michonne.
It’s exciting seeing Rick Grimes again and of course, Andrew Lincoln hasn’t lost his touch. There’s something new and intriguing about Rick in this community. One thing that hasn’t changed is that Rick is determined to do the right thing. Although there wasn’t much of Michonne in this episode, it’ll be exciting to see her back in her element.
Rating: 10/10