Are you the type of person who whispers “That’s Rick Grimes” every time you watch Love Actually and see Andrew Lincoln? I have incredible news if you secretly long for the hardened action star’s short-lived but impactful romantic-comedy days. Not only is badass zombie killer Rick Grimes back and better than ever on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, but he’s a heart-eyed simp and a wife guy to boot. We won! The “Richonne”-centric spinoff — which was originally developed as a film — delivers on the romance immediately. I couldn’t be more thrilled or charmed!
That said, The Ones Who Live is not all charm. The opening image of the series, which picks up some time after Rick Grimes left The Walking Dead’s narrative, is quite harrowing. The first thing we see is Rick attempting to die by suicide. It’s jarring! How did he get to this point? Why did he never escape captivity and return to his wife and children? Where is he? The Ones Who Live quickly answers those questions before asking about a dozen more.
After that freezing cold open, the episode flashes back to “five years after the bridge” — a reference to Lincoln’s last proper episode in The Walking Dead and the last time Rick and Michonne saw each other. In season nine, a bridge exploded, injuring Rick, and a minor antagonist named Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) seized the opportunity to kidnap him for a secret military operation called the CRM, a.k.a. the Civic Republic Military.