The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live – Was It Worth It?
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is the first of the spin-off shows to make it to the UK. No date has been set for the Daryl Dixon or Dead City shows. It follows Michonne finally finding Rick and wanting to bring him home. However, not everything is going to be as easy as she expected.
Rick’s Departure
Rick left heroically, saving Alexandra from a massive hoard of Walkers. While the audience knew he survived, the characters were left unsure of whether he survived. In reality, Andrew Lincoln had been asking to leave and was due to return for a 3-movie deal. Covid-19 stopped happening and we were left with this as the main option.
This was not ideal, but Rick left in the right way saving loved ones. Weirdly it might have been nice to see his character finish there. However, the graphic novel has him sticking around much later in the story.
Michonne’s Departure
Michonne’s departure felt a lot worse because she left during Season 10 in the middle of the battle with the Whisperers. She left Judith and RJ to go in search of Rick which seemed like a stupid thing to do. It was a strange decision for the character to leave in the middle of the deadliest conflict. It wouldn’t have been as bad if it was in the aftermath of the battle, but in the middle, it leaves things feeling empty.
The Missing Years
The show sets up Episode One to follow Rick’s journey and attempts to escape. It shows how he became helpless faceless soldier and finally cut off his hand. He has spent time trying to escape and learning about a group that has plans to change things.
Episode Two follows Michonne’s journey, she meets up with the people she was trying to return safely. She travels with them before facing a big struggle and losing the people she became close to.
The show didn’t spend too much time going over the journey to get here and didn’t seem to do enough to cover itself in glory. Everything felt rushed and despite a strong meeting point, it left us wanting more.
Did We Need to Return to The Couple?
One of the biggest questions comes from asking, do we still care about the pair? Now, this is more to do with how well the original series concluded, without either of them around. The battles against The Whisperers and later threats brought the characters together. Judith became the best Grimes character and Daryl the leader needed. Many others stepped up and gave the show a worthy conclusion.
The return of the pair meant introducing another large group of characters who barely stick around. Jadis returns and is a bigger threat, but otherwise, we only follow Michonne and Rick trying to get home. Rick had become a tired character in the main series and Michonne doesn’t feel as slick as we remember her to be.
The Series
The series falls into a trap of only wanting to follow the pair trying to return home. It doesn’t do enough to show the scale of the CRM even though we know the threat is massive. There isn’t enough to make them have a villain that could cause major problems and some of the episodes drag along. By the time we learn what Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn) is planning, it gets solved the same day.
General Beale might have one of the twisted concepts, but he never feels like as big of a presence as the leader of the Reapers Pope. Pope felt like a disturbing figure in this world and stuck around a lot longer. Beale has his moments, but the show fails to put enough focus on him and his plans.
In the end, this feels a lot more like fan service to give people a more satisfying conclusion to Rick and Michonne’s story. It adds very little to the bigger picture in this world and the fans have become a lot more invested in the characters (actors) who stuck around in the main series to the very end. To make matters worse it used the end of the core series to put a glorified trailer for this season into the mix.
Same Old Problems
The show is guilty of the same problems the main series got caught up with in the middle seasons. It introduces characters who seem interesting before killing them before the episode is over. This fails to gather enough reason to see the change and leaves us wanting to spend more time learning about the short-lived supporting characters, than the core pair.
The Future
If we look to the future, it feels like it might be nice to see this be the end of the chapter for the characters. I feel it would be a mistake to return for a story exclusively with the pair. However, if we did return, it would be more about Rick’s place in Alexandra and the neighbouring communities. He would need to earn the trust of the characters he never met, and it would present a much more complex story to see.
