'The Ones Who Live' Pulls Off a Feat 'The Walking Dead' Failed For Years to Accomplish

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 4, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 4, 2024 |

Last week’s premiere episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live caught us up with Rick Grimes, who the Civil Republic Military (CRM) abducted and, despite several attempts to leave, remains an unwilling soldier in their army. The CRM, like so many antagonist groups in The Walking Dead universe, has an amorphous belief in the greater good. Like so many of those antagonist groups, the CRM’s efforts are also shortsighted, cruel, and needlessly sacrifice individuals for what it believes is to benefit the future of mankind.

The CRM has existed in The Walking Dead universe for years in some form. It obviously abducted Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, there was a short arc centering an a CRM helicopter pilot in Fear the Walking Dead, and The Walking Dead: The World Beyond was essentially an entire series devoted to turning the CRM into an evil entity that viewers were meant to hate.

The problem was that no one cared about the characters in The World Beyond, so even as the CRM destroyed the entire Omaha community and killed major characters in that series, their actions were met mostly with indifference. When the characters sacrificed are as obnoxious as the kids in The World Beyond, maybe “the greater good” doesn’t sound so bad.

It took exactly 20 minutes to change that dynamic in The Ones Who Live. For 20 minutes, we got to see Michonne in a good mood for the first time in I don’t know how long. She may be searching for Rick and missing her kids back in Alexandria, but she meets Aiden, Bailey (whose lives she actually saved on her last full episode of The Walking Dead in 2020), and Nat, and their friendship feels genuine. These characters are instantly likable and decide to help Michonne find Rick. Aiden is pregnant, Bailey is the doting soon-to-be-father, and Nat is the curmudgeonly little guy with a big heart. For 20 minutes, I had forgotten how bleak things are on The Walking Dead.

And then a CRM helicopter drops poisonous gas on a group of innocent people minding their own business, killing Aiden, her baby, and Bailey (and nearly killing Nat and Michonne), and now I finally hate the CRM. All it took was the deaths of likable characters with whom it only takes minutes to connect and do what two seasons of The World Beyond could not: Turn the CRM into a Goliath that I cannot wait for David (here, Rick and Michonne) to take down.

That hatred only grows minutes later when, after Rick and Michonne finally find each other, a CRM soldier shoots and kills Nat. I had hoped that Matthew Jeffers would be around all season. Damnit. At least Nat gets to see (if only briefly) Rick and Michonne reunite.

The reunion, alas, is short-lived. Rick quickly asks Michonne to go against all of her instincts and hide the fact that she is a strong-willed, independent person because the CRMs do not treat ‘A’s kindly. Michonne needs to hide her past, get in line, and behave like a B. She agrees, begrudgingly, because she trusts Rick. She changes her name. Fabricates a new backstory, and she and Rick surreptitiously plan their escape.

It might have worked, too, except (*raises fist*), Jadis is there to gum up the works. This is why Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) is in the new series. She’s an old Alexandrian frenemy. She knows Michonne. She’s a higher-up at the CRM. She can blow Michonne’s cover anytime she wants, which is why the episode, appropriately, ends with Jadis asking Rick, “What the f**k do you think you’re doing?”

And just like that, The Walking Dead is finally interesting again. All it took was better, character-driven stories and higher, more personal stakes. I don’t know how, but I am genuinely excited to see Rick and Michonne crush the CRM.