The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
Ep. 1: “Years”
Directed by Bert & Bertie
Written by Scott M. Gimple

* For a recap & review of Ep. 2, click here.
Rick Grimes was taken by the Civic Republic Military. He sits in a room contemplating suicide, holding a piece of broken glass to his throat. But he can’t bring himself to do that. Five years following the incident at the bridge, we’re given a glimpse of Rick and others being sent out into the woods. He’s got himself a hatchet. All the folks along with Rick are tethered to a zipline connected back to a soldier. In the woods are burning zombies. Rick goes wild with the hatchet to the point he goes a little too far and a soldier alerts him to stop. He takes this chance to try escaping. He prepares to cut off his hand with his heated hatchet, telling himself: “This is how.” Rick does the unthinkable and chops the hand off. He suffers through the pain, bleeding profusely, as he stumbles through the woods with soldiers not far behind. He finds a bit of fire to cauterise his wounded wrist, sealing it off.
But then the soldiers find him.

Somewhere in a dreamy place, Rick and Michonne meet. He asks her for directions and she helps. He decides not to go right away, stopping to talk with her a bit. They discuss, figuratively, where they each want to be; it seems they’re perfect being right there together. If only it were real. It’s just a figment of Rick’s imagination, a sweet dream to break up the horror of his everyday life. Rick wakes up without his hand, back in reality.
The CRM protects a city on the edge of Philadelphia, though the city operates on its own. Rick’s among the consignees, who are working to earn their citizenship in this new society. Rick meets a man called Okafor (Craig Tate), a Lieutenant Colonel of the CRM, who’s keeping an eye on him. The military are baffled by Rick in general since nobody typically wants to escape back into the wasteland. Not to mention Rick’s basically a one-man killing machine, so the CRM want to keep him around to work. Okafor tells Rick: “There‘s no escape for the living.”
Rick takes an idea from his friend Esteban and runs with it: join up with the CRM, if only to get a new, perhaps better opportunity to escape. So, Mr. Grimes begins his training, which includes hand-to-hand combat, flight simulation training, and more. The military’s led by Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn). They even give Rick a bad-ass new prosthetic arm including a gnarly blade. Of course none of this stops Rick from dreaming at night, imagining himself and Michonne in a surreal place where they can find each other again, whereas they’re still separated so far apart in reality. And reality comes a-knockin’, pushing Rick back into his military work with Okafor.
A year passes. Rick and his semi-but-not-really-pal Pearl (Lesley-Ann Brandt) are explained the system of A’s and B’s, which we saw in the original series of The Walking Dead. A’s are usually “sent away and killed” because they’re strong leadership material, B’s are then kept to be good little followers. Okafor is the reason Rick and Pearl are still around; they’re A’s. He thinks they’re special people. He thinks they can help him change the military from within. Rick plans to go along to get along, but he doesn’t consider this his fight. He keeps being optimistic about finding Michonne and others again, whereas Pearl seems resigned to a different kind of outlook on this post-zombie wasteland existence.

We hear about the wider world out there connected by the CRM. Mjr. Gen. Beale has a chat with Rick while they enjoy a view of the secret city. He explains how they saved the city, along with the Pennsylvania National Guard, thanks to Okafor, who refused to drop napalm on it. Beale starts to question Rick, asking whether Mr. Grimes is looking for another chance to escape, or merely a way to die. Rick doesn’t quite answer anything: “Everything was about secrets,” he tells us, narrating a letter to Michonne. Day after day, Rick Grimes is a dutiful member of the CRM. He does his duties. He follows his orders. He does what is expected of him by the military
The secret Rick’s keeping is his next plan for escape. He goes to Esteban about his latest plan. He tells his friend he has to get back home, or else he’ll just die. Esteban explains to Rick how to escape through a tunnel by giving him an access code and more advice. At this point, years have gone by, Rick’s been working himself into a position of trust with Okafor and the CRM. On a little mission, Rick uses a walker’s hand and his dog tags to make it look like he’s been killed. He sneaks into the sewers as he prepares to blow the place sky high. But a girl appears and alerts walkers, which forces Rick to abandon his grenade into the sewer and start killing zombies. Pearl witnessed everything; she guns down a bunch of walkers to help Rick. She tells Rick to call in their location with the girl. She also says Okafor “knows about” him, which spooks Rick. So what’s next?

At night, Rick puts a blade to Okafor’s neck. He demands to know what Okafor knows, and the latter explains finding one of Rick’s letters. Okafor mentions Rick’s daughter, as well as Michonne. He gets a few punches in the face. Rick rages at the man: “You don‘t get to choose for the world. You don‘t get to choose for me.” He’s sick of all the military soldier bullshit. Okafor then reveals that he bombed Atlanta, Los Angeles, and he was on the way to do it in Philadelphia, too, but he decided not to do it. He says he killed his wife and 4,000 more in order to save the last city. This horrifies Rick. But the two men come to a standstill. Rick wants Okafor to kill him, but Okafor refuses and then explains how things will go now for Rick on a “path to the higher echelons of power.” It’s not what Rick wants, however, Okafor tells him that he already has power.At night, Pearl comes to Rick’s room and they look at a news report about Omaha being destroyed. They certainly have a contentious relationship, and Pearl loves to break glasses, but they’re coming around to the same kind of wavelength. They both know that things are wrong, that the CRM needs to change, and working from the inside is just as good as anything else. That still doesn’t stop Rick from wanting to be with Michonne, with his daughter, anywhere else but with the CRM.
And we’re back to the episode’s beginning with Rick putting a piece of glass to his throat. He can’t end his life. “Then it would just be nothing, wouldn‘t it? All of it for nothing.” Rick says he “still decided to die.” He’s decided to stop writing letters to Michonne that she’ll never read anyway. He’s decided to give in and become part of the CRM machinery, if only to do something to “help save the world” since that’s all he can do right now. Rick throws away the keepsakes, the memories, the things that have him holding onto hope.

In the dreamy place, Rick and Michonne meet again. They have a sweet moment or two. They share a kiss. Then it all burns away in a flame, as Rick wakes back up into reality and its horrors once more for the day. We’re back in the present moment, after getting a glimpse of Rick’s recent past. Rick is in a helicopter with Okafor. He talks about a night when he was just 7 years old. He got up for a glass of water in the middle of the night. He was trying to be quiet and saw a light in the kitchen. Crops were burning. Rick’s father was a mess and half burned, but assured his boy that things were fine, explaining why the crops were on fire. Young Rick felt at ease. Rick says the harvest the following year was the best it had ever been. Later on, his mother told him his father lit the fire himself to save the farm and the family. It left a deep impression on Rick. It’s a good bet this is why Rick is a man who perpetually tries to save others, in spite of what might happen to him. Okafor says he hopes to turn the CRM around, to make the world better.
The helicopter ride is cut short when a missile hits the plane, spearing Okafor in the guts. The missile explodes and more missiles start to hit the helicopter, which has Rick reeling, attempting to not get killed while they go down hard. The helicopter lands brutally but Rick’s okay, except for the fact there’s someone out there trying to kill them. Rick and the other CRM soldiers grab their weaponry, heading into the forest, as more missiles come whizzing out of the trees. They’re knocked off their feet, and then someone comes to finish them off. But Rick fights with a sword-wielding person until they pop off his helmet, and Michonne realises she’s found her husband again after all this time. A wild, unexpected meeting. The beginning of a new existence.