The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season 1 finale raises new questions about Rick and Michonne’s futures in the franchise. Will they return?
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season 1’s ending raises questions about Rick and Michonne’s futures in the franchise. After years of anticipation, The Walking Dead finally reunited Rick and Michonne and concluded their conflict with the CRM. But now that the fight is over, their statuses in The Walking Dead franchise are once again uncertain.
For a while, there was good reason to suspect that The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live would be a mult-season story, simply because of the strength of its villains. But in an interesting turn of events in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season finale, Rick and Michonne defeated the Civic Republic Military and got their happy ending. With Major General Beale dead, Rick and Michonne back home, and the Civic Republic reformed, The Ones Who Live season 2 no longer feels like a necessity, thus making what comes next for Rick and Michonne all the more mysterious.
What The Walking Dead’s Actors & Producers Have Said About Rick & Michonne’s Futures
Since whether or not Rick and Michonne would survive The Ones Who Live season finale was naturally meant to be a big unknown, there was no explicit confirmation that either character would return after season 1. When asked if The Ones Who Live would be the end of Rick and Michonne’s story, Gurira naturally refrained from answering. That said, it’s been suggested that a continuation of the narrative was at least on the table. In regards to a potential season 2, Showrunner Scott M. Gimple claimed that “anything is possible.”
The Ones Who Live Season 1 Feels Like A Definitive Ending For Rick & Michonne
The Ones Who Live season 1 may not necessarily be the last time Rick and Michonne are seen onscreen, but it did come across as a final chapter in both characters’ stories. Curiously, the episode began to convey this idea even before Major General Beale’s death and the CRM’s defeat even happened. Rick and Michonne experiencing flashbacks of their biggest moments in The Walking Dead timeline felt like precursors to their arcs coming to a definitive close, not unlike how The Walking Dead series finale featured callbacks to the past before tying up its narrative.
The nature of the ending added even more to the finality of it all. Both of their character arcs have been resolved, as Rick finally got to meet RJ and see Judith again. After being kept apart from his family for years, Rick managed to get back home, as did Michonne. What’s more, their greatest threat has been dismantled. The Civic Republic is now under new leadership, which amounts to a massive development considering that the CRM was once thought to be the top candidate to be the villain of a Walking Dead crossover.
Rick Grimes Still Has Unfinished Business In The Walking Dead
While it’s true that Rick and Michonne’s original goals in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live have been completed and their biggest loose ends from the main show are now tied up, that’s not to say the franchise has no reason to bring them back. After all, the franchise still has at least two reunions it needs to offer Rick Grimes. One is with Morgan Jones, who announced his intention to find Rick in his final Fear the Walking Dead episode. The setup clearly paved the way for Rick and Morgan to team up again in The Walking Dead universe.
There’s also the matter of Daryl. After Rick’s disappearance, there was no character on The Walking Dead that spent more time looking for him than Daryl – not even Michonne. His efforts to find Rick, combined with season 11’s long buildup to Daryl finding out that Rick is still alive, created an expectation for an eventual reunion. Not seeing Rick and Daryl share the screen again would be a major disappointment. Making it even more necessary is the role Daryl played in the upbringing of Rick’s children. Some level of appreciation for what Daryl did for Judith and RJ needs to be expressed by both of their parents.
In addition to the characters Rick still needs to meet after The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, he also still needs to address what Beale told him about their limited futures. According to Beale, humanity only has about 14 years left. To secure a future for his children, Rick will most likely need to work alongside Michonne – and perhaps the Civic Republic – to make sure civilization survives the coming trials.