The Ones Who Live Is Rick and Michonne’s Love Story

Michonne’s quest to find her husband finally comes to fruition all these years later. And when Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) eventually reunites with his wife Michonne (Danai Gurira), expect sparks to fly. Now, while there likely won’t be any poster boards involved like Lincoln’s character used in Love Actually to profess his love for Keira Knightley, Lincoln insists that his and Gurira’s new series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, is, in fact, a love story. Lincoln said in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly:

Lincoln said in the same interview:

“We had been trying to find a way and were like, ‘What is the story we want to tell?’ And then it was Dania and Scott [Gimple] that really talked me into it. They just said, ‘Look, why don’t we just tell a love story? Why don’t we see if we can reconnect these two lovers from these weirdly disparate time zones and tell a bigger story about what the grown-ups have been doing while we’ve been scrambling around in the main series, and shade in a bit of that.’”

Lincoln spent eight full seasons on AMC’s The Walking Dead before his character mysteriously vanished — in the other survivors’ eyes — in Season 9, Episode 5’s What Comes After back in 2018. Lincoln was originally going to reprise the role of Rick Grimes on the big screen, but almost six years later, he’s finally returning to AMC. And Lincoln responded to the unique TWD love story pitch and some convincing from Gurira and showrunner Scott M. Gimple by saying:

The Ones Who Love

Over a year after Andrew Lincoln left The Walking Dead, co-star Danai Gurira followed in Season 10, Episode 13’s What We Become as Michonne departed the AMC series. Now, while Rick and Michonne still must navigate the horrors of the zombie-filled apocalyptic world, Gurira was determined to make sure The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live stays true to its love story. Gurira told Entertainment Weekly:

“I was the biggest advocate around making sure that we stayed on that track, so I had opinions on how love stories work and how they don’t. That was a big important part of it for me, as I’m probably the one who’s also watched more love stories than my two co-creators.”

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Showrunner Scott M. Gimple said in the same interview:

“It’s an epic love story. But it’s a survival story too, because here’s a wild question: Would Rick Grimes have survived coming out of the hospital if he didn’t have a wife and a kid? I’m not sure he would have. What drove him was his love. And Michonne was living like a walker because she had lost her family.”

Gurira also told EW:

“There are times where that’s not the muscle of The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead’s muscle is very different from love stories. They manage to sneak their way into the main thrust, which was usually: We’re dealing with an enemy. We’re trying to stay alive. We’re trying to thrive. We’re trying to keep a community going. Those were the large themes of The Walking Dead. Love stories tend to be a teeny bit peripheral. So, the idea of making a love story actually the thrust and the drive of a series was a new muscle.”