Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

Three cinema films, rewritten as six episodes

Rick Grimes has been in the hands of an army for five years when this opens, after four escape attempts, one of which cost him his left hand. The story was developed for cinemas first: a trilogy of features was announced in November 2018, a 2019 teaser confirmed a theatrical release through Universal, and in July 2022 it became six television episodes instead.

Scott M. Gimple, who ran both versions, says Danai Gurira was not free while the films were being developed, so Michonne sat out the first and the two were to meet again only in the second. On screen the reunion arrives in the opening episode, directed by the British pair Bert & Bertie.

The Story

The Civic Republic Military operates out of Philadelphia and destroys settlements with chlorine gas. One of its helicopters carried Rick away in 2018, on his departure from The Walking Dead. The army put him to work outside the city, and he ended up joining it as a sergeant major, while Michonne left Alexandria to look for him.

Danai Gurira co-created the series with Gimple and Andrew Lincoln, and wrote the fourth episode while playing Michonne in it. The six cost 82.75 million dollars, shot in New Jersey between February and May 2023 under the working title Summit. The credited source is the comic by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard.

The Ideal Audience

Six episodes ran on AMC and AMC+ from 25 February to 31 March 2024. The premiere drew three million viewers in three days, the network's best start for a new series since 2018, and the run took the Saturn Award for Best Television Presentation. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 88 per cent from 55 critics, Metacritic at 61 out of 100.

Common Sense Media sets it at sixteen and up: attacks on people and zombies that end in crushed heads, a decapitation, audible swearing, hard liquor. The critics' summary on Rotten Tomatoes credits it with blockbuster scope, and the scale is there, but we would watch it for the fourth episode rather than the army.