Hogan Reviews

I don’t really have a great deal of interest in the Walking Dead spin-offs, not being the greatest fan of the last few seasons and all, but “The Ones Who Live” mini-series peaked my interest (not enough to subscribe to the service it was on, but enough to pick up the blu-ray cheap!) because it tied up the Rick and Michonne loose ends, and given Rick leaving the show was one of the major reasons I didn’t like it as much seeing him back in the spotlight was worth the price of admission alone. What about the rest though? Like the really… REALLY stupid Michonne stuff from the main show, was that brought to a reasonable conclusion? Let’s take a look!

The first episode of the six focuses in on what Rick (Andrew Lincoln) has been doing for all the years since he vanished on the exploding bridge way back when and then got taken away in a helicopter. Basically he was taken to Philadelphia, which is now a walled fortress ruled by an extremely powerful military force called the CRM, or Civic Republic Military. In order to keep their people safe nobody who knows of their existence is allowed to leave and so in the series we saw a few escape attempts by Rick and in the opening of this episode we see him chopping off his own left hand to make a break for it, “finally” bringing this version of Rick up to speed with the comic version in terms of how many hands he has, I guess. Eventually though the constant recapturing, the size and strength of the CRM and general mental and physical trauma of everything over such a long period has an effect on Rick and he begins to see no other choice but to surrender himself to them, specifically following his direct superior Lt. Colonel Okafor (Craig Tate) and his fellow soldier Peral Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) with a plan to improve the CRM from within, as the CRM’s leader Major General Johnathan Beale (Terry O’Quinn) is clearly not up to snuff. Funnily enough though, just as soon as he’s come around to the idea his helicopter is shot down and Okafor is killed, and the perpetrator who took down the chopper? Michone (Danai Gurira) of course, who randomly decides to pull Rick’s helmet off before stabbing him, unlike the rest of the soldiers she kills, the two reuniting as a result…

Just another day in paradise…

Episode 2 then focuses on what Michonne did when she decided to abandon her two very young children to their post-apocalyptic world fate to go on a wild goose chase for her former lover (Yes that still drives me crazy thinking about it…) She found a caravan of survivors, always moving from one place to the other but does so using some rather harsh rules of leaving people behind as the caravan must always keep moving, so Michonne manages to get through to some of them to break away with the idea that if they help her find Rick then they can all go to one of the settlements back home together. Sadly for them though they get mustard gassed by the CRM and only Michonne and an engineer called Nat (Mathew August Jeffers) survive, but immediately after has to slowly recover for over a year within an old shopping centre. They eventually reach the forest and see a CRM helicopter like the one that mustard gassed them and shoot it down, leading to the end of Episode 1 as mentioned. As Michonne and Rick reunite Nat is killed and Rick in a panic pretends to have survived the crash with the help of passing stranger Michonne who should be recruited. This works but it’s here we’re reintroduced to Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh), the lady who essentially kidnapped Rick way back when and is now a reasonably high ranking member of the CRM. She says that if Rick and Michonne work together and try to escape she has a file that will tell the higher ups where all their home bases / settlements are, which will lead to them being wiped out much like a surviving city had just been as seen on the CRM newsfeed (though it was framed like an accident that led the Dead in…) The file will reach them even if she’s killed, so Rick immediately returns to “there’s no point in fighting them mode” and leaves Michonne to head out by herself via a boat while he covers her tracks, but unsurprisingly Michonne isn’t having any of it.

A big group of survivors who after many years of survival stop surviving because of Michonne. Nice one, hope finding Rick is worth it!

She returns and joins Thorne’s platoon but soon ignores orders in order to save someone, which would have caused her to be executed had Rick not stood in, using the fact that General Beale has earmarked him for a promotion as a method to get his way. On the helicopter ride back from that incident though Michonne grabs Rick and pulls them both out of the chopper and into the lake underneath, the two emerging near a set of high tech flats that some rich people had been using to escape the apocalypse (but failed, naturally). It’s here they finally have a full episode’s worth of a heart-to-heart, Rick admitting that thanks to all the trauma he couldn’t even remember his own son’s face and then finding out he actually has a second son along with his daughter back at home (not questioning Michonne’s idea to abandon them to come here at any point, even if it did somehow ended up working…) Anyway, by the end of the episode they’re back as a couple and acting like their old selves, having made up their mind to go home, but you won’t be surprised to find out it won’t be that easy…

Overall I really enjoyed the series. I mean, even for The Walking Dead credibility was stretched so, so thin but hey-ho, if it’s fun that’s all that matters. I will say that sometimes I found Lesley-Ann Brandt’s accent so thick I missed what she said. It only happened a couple of times but it was… mildly annoying when it did. Can’t be helped, she was good in the role anyway!

Overall Thoughts:

“Yeah… I’m pretty sure this guy won’t betray me. All those escape attempts were a sign of love…?”

“The Ones Who Live” was a really enjoyable mini-series, full of well choreographed action and some great character moments for our lead duo. Admittedly there are some weak spots, and even for a more fantastical series like the Walking Dead it still felt too contrived for a lot of the stuff to happen, but hey. As an epilogue to the original TV series it works incredibly well, to the point where I really hope no future spin-off touches that perfect ending.

May as well mention that we get some flashbacks showing Jadis heading back to a specific spot in the woods to meet with Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) at the same time every year, not being able to bring herself to kill him but at the same time never telling him enough about the CRM to have to anyway. This leads to Rick and Michonne’s plan to head home being discovered by Jadis, who is then wounded trying to take them out with the help of bandits and eventually dies in a warehouse showdown. This obviously leads to the issue of her hidden dossier about them, leading to Rick and Michonne heading back to the CRM to get the file and also Rick wants to get the special briefing to go along with his promotion out of morbid curiosity. So while Rick is getting the lowdown on how the CRM have crushed and will continue to crush several other settlements for not conforming to their ways Michonne tares up the dossier and then sneaks into a trooper meeting where they’re told to go into a settlement and kidnap the children before gassing the rest of the citizens to death. It’s safe to say neither are happy leaving things as they are so Rick kills General Beale at the end of his meeting and Michonne and Rick rig up explosives at a huge soldier meeting to wipe out the majority of the CRM’s forces in one go.

Remember when she was a barely speaking simple tribe-like leader? … It’s been quite the road for the character really…

Thorne arrives and tries to stop them but is too late and a good couple of hundred CRM thugs are wiped out in one go. Thorne then battles and dies to Michonne, then Rick and her escape the swiftly zombie-infested military base. We then get a rather lovely final few scenes showing that the CRM’s atrocities get exposed to the public and a new leadership is put in place, one that welcomes travel into and out of the Civil Republic freely and they use their helicopters to deliver food and aid to other settlements across the country, and then yes we get Rick and Michonne dropped off and reuniting with Judith and RJ, a happy family unit at long last. Frankly I hope none of the future Walking Dead media touch the US after this point, at least not with any major consequences as this felt like a perfect end scene for the series as a whole, a real feeling that the US was finally leaving the post-apocalypse era and creating a new world with Rick, our lead protagonist, happy and safe with his family, against all odds. I just wish we could see Darryl or Carol or any of the other regular’s reactions to Rick being back, but hey-ho, they’re off in their own spin-off land. Still loved what we got though!