The following contains spoilers for
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
Season 1, Episode 1, “Years,” which aired Sunday, Feb. 25 on AMC. This article also contains mentions of suicide.
After years of The Walking Dead fans asking, “Where’s Rick Grimes?”, they now have the answer. The premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live walks viewers through Rick Grimes’ involuntary confinement with the Civic Republic Military (CRM), the Civic Republic’s armed force that has power unlike anything seen in The Walking Dead universe. It’s a recap episode on the surface, but “Years” also introduces a secretive plot that’s been brewing behind the CRM’s back for years.
The episode begins with Rick watching a newscast of the Omaha genocide, seen on The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Seeing the control the CRM has over a city across the country, Rick feels hopeless in his attempt to leave. He contemplates suicide by stabbing himself with a blade of glass, but stops himself before the blade hits too deep. Five years after being taken by the CRM, Rick is accompanied by Pearl Thorne and other cosignees on an assignment to extract walkers outside the Civic Republic’s walls. The work is voluntary, or so the voice over the speaker says, which appears to be a part of Rick’s larger plan.
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Although he’s chained up to soldiers guarding him, Rick cuts off his chained hand to escape, a twist on an iconic Walking Dead comic event. He nearly manages to get out, but is tasered by a soldier. In a dream sequence set in a pre-apocalyptic time, he meets Michonne and asks her for directions for his new workplace. She encourages him that he’ll get there, and that she believes in him. When he wakes, Rick narrates his life with the CRM.
After the bridge incident in The Walking Dead, Rick is taken by the CRM, which has thousands of soldiers protecting a hidden city in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “Security and secrecy above all” is their code, making it impossible for anyone to escape. While the city governs itself, the CRM is the one truly in power. Anyone they rescue is held against their will, working as cosignees to kill walkers for protection and energy, or manage water and waste. Worst off, it takes six years to be promoted as a citizen of the Civic Republic, in which they can live normal lives as they would in the post-apocalyptic world. The alternative is joining the CRM as a soldier.
Every cosignee’s goal was to make it inside the city’s walls after six years, but Rick had a different plan: he was going to get home to Alexandria, even if the CRM would try to stop him. On an assignment killing walkers, Rick struggles due to only having one hand left. Lieutenant Colonel Donald Okafor tells Rick that despite his many attempted escapes, Okafor vouched for Rick to Major General Beale. He believes Rick has more potential than being a cosignee, but Rick wants no part of it. Filled with rage, he kills the majority of walkers in the area, leaving his fellow cosignees and Okafor impressed. Thorne appears less impressed, throwing a bottle at him, but thanking him for proving there’s no way out.
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Later, Rick meets up with a friend named Esteban, who’s more comfortable with the CRM. It’s his last day of cosignment working in utilities, and he’s more than happy to go inside the gates to enjoy life’s luxuries of air conditioning. Contrary to Okafor’s previous statement that he’s Rick’s only friend, Esteban seems to be a true ally to Rick — one that doesn’t see him as a tool to push him higher on the ladder. Rick gets the idea to accept Okafor’s offer to join his “program” as part of the army, just so he can gain a better chance of escaping. He trains with Thorne, who also agreed to join and has much more experience as a soldier than Rick does. In another dream, Rick and Michonne agree to meet for lunch every day on the bench.
Okafor meets with Rick and Thorne in a junkyard for a secret meeting about his program. He plans to improve the CRM from the inside, believing its corruption and sadism will end up hurting the Civic Republic. To do so, he needs Rick and Thorne as part of Force Command to help him. Rick and Thorne are confused about why they — of all people — are being chosen for this new initiative. Rick tried to escape four times and Thorne tried to kill Okafor. But he believes they can make real change in the CRM.
They both came in as “As,” people who are strong and display leadership qualities. “As” are ordered to be killed, as they’re more likely to question authority and disobey orders, but Okafor defends them. He wants more heroic personalities in the CRM like Rick. On the other hand, “Bs” are everyday people just trying to survive. The more they move up the ranks, the more secrets Thorne and Rick are exposed to about the CRM. These are secrets that nobody in the Civic Republic knows about, and only 10 percent of soldiers are aware of.
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Thorne is more enthusiastic about this than Rick is. She sees it as an opportunity to survive in the world, and won’t let Rick get in her way. She believes she’s cursed with bad luck as she tried to get back home to South Africa four times since the outbreak. The one time she nearly succeeded, Okafor found her and brought her into the CRM. Unlike Rick, she stopped giving up and has accepted her fate in the CRM. In the narration, Rick says that the CRM found the working cities of Portland and Omaha and formed the Alliance of Three, even though the latter two don’t know where the Civic Republic is.
On a run, he talks to General Beale, who questions Rick about Okafor’s intentions with the army. Rick says nothing, believing Okafor is his best chance at escaping. Beale reveals that Okafor stopped the military from bombing Philadelphia, betraying his people and switching sides to the CRM. Rick meets with Esteban in a Civic Republic park to discuss a secret tunnel to help Rick escape. There’s an interesting tidbit that some viewers may miss: a couple of Civic Republic citizens are holding protest signs demanding CRM transparency, so clearly even the people on the inside know something fishy is happening. At a far away chemical plant, Rick fails to escape once again because he needed to help a child in a walker herd.
Thorne catches him in the act and tells him that Okafor knows everything about Rick and would’ve gone after him. Later, Rick confronts Okafor about what Thorne said. Okafor knows about Michonne and Judith, and is willing to kill them if Rick escapes. He’s not going to let his sacrifices — killing his wife and 4,000 people — be in vain just because Rick wants to be set free. Rick watches the broadcast of the Omaha incident with Thorne. Only the news isn’t aware that the CRM was behind it. Thorne takes the news in a vastly different way than Rick does. She thinks Portland needs to get in line and stop asking questions, just as she thinks Omaha did.
The CRM’s nefarious code has officially brainwashed her. The next morning, Rick writes his last letter to Michonne and starts renovation of a college in the Cascade Range across the country. He figures his time would be better spent improving the CRM than dreaming about a life he’s no longer privileged to have. In the present day, Rick’s helicopter is taken down by bombs and Okafor is killed in the process. An unknown person kills the rest of the soldiers, but not Rick. It’s Michonne, much to Rick’s surprise.
New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere every Sunday at 9:00 PM ET on AMC and AMC+.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
The love story between Rick and Michonne. Changed by a world that is constantly changing, will they find themselves in a war against the living or will they discover that they too are The Walking Dead?
- Release Date
- February 25, 2024
- Creator
- Scott M. Gimple and Danai Gurira
- Cast
- Frankie Quinones , Andrew Lincoln , Danai Gurira , Lesley-Ann Brandt , Pollyanna McIntosh
- Seasons
- 1
- Franchise
- The Walking Dead
- Production Company
- American Movie Classics (AMC)
- Streaming Service(s)
- AMC+
