Catch Up with Rick Grimes Eight Years After Bridge Explosion in Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Premiere

Sunday night's premiere episode of the six-part series put the focus on Andrew Lincoln's Rick. The actor departed the parent series in dramatic fashion back in 2018 after a bridge explosion left his fellow survivors at least temporarily convinced he'd died.

In truth, he'd been captured by Pollyanna McIntosh's Jadis (aka Anne) and the CRM (Civic Republic Military). The series then experienced a six-year time jump. After the truth came clear for his wife Michonne, portrayed by Danai Gurira, she made the decision to go out and find him.

While it was many years later in the show's timeline, Gurira's departure came less than two years after Lincoln's, with her exit coming in 2020. Also, both actors returned for brief cameos in The Walking Dead's 2022 series finale to set up this spin-off.

Since this project was announced, a global pandemic shut down the world, the parent series was ultimately canceled in favor of a series of new shows, and the feature film ambitions to continue Rick and Michonne's story shifted to a limited series.

The question on AMC's mind is if, in this era of diminished returns, the appetite is still there for Walking Dead fan to re-embrace arguably two of the franchise's most popular characters. Many of those fans believed that the parent series never recovered from their losses.

Certainly, Lincoln brought an incredible gravitas to that series, and effortlessly held down the premiere of this one, which quickly burned through the years he spent captured by the CRM via letters he was writing to Michonne (all the while knowing he would never send them).

One of the most disturbing things that happened in this nonstop premiere was watching the television Walking Dead universe aligning more closely to its comic book source material, albeit in a very different way.

In one of his many attempts to escape the CRM, Rick actually chops off his own hand before cauterizing the wound inside the body of a burning walker. That move comes years after it should have, per the comics, where Rick lost the hand to the group's first big bad, The Governor.

It was both jarring and unusual for the show to decide to mirror his comics injury at this late date. And it was a little underwhelming to see him making such a dramatic choice as part of a harrowing escape sequence, only to get captured almost immediately afterward.

All of this, though, was to prove why he was always an "A" and not the "B" that Anne had told the CRM he was when she used him to get herself picked up and welcomed within their ranks. As detailed in this premiere, an "A" is someone with leadership qualities, while a "B" is more likely to be a loyal soldier or follower. As such, the CRM generally rejects or kills "A's." So, in a twisted way, Anne saved Rick's life.

The premiere spends most of its time following RIck's journey with rapid glimpses over the years as he concocts more elaborate plans to escape and even reluctantly befriends fellow "A" Pearl (Lesley-Ann Brandt) and Lt. Col. Okafor (Craig Tate), the soldier who recruited them intentionally, despite them being "A's" with leadership qualities, because he wanted their help to change the CRM from the inside.

Peeling back a little more about how the Civic Republic works, Rick is made a consignee, working outside of the hidden city (Philadelphia) for six years to help protect it in order to prove himself worthy to go inside.

Throughout, Rick attempts at one point to kill Okafor and nearly pulls off an escape attempt, until he realizes it would kill an innocent little girl -- who is reminiscent of the little girl zombie from the parent series' pilot. Ultimately, it's the destruction of Omaha, as detailed in World Beyond, that finally pushed Rick to give in to his fate.

He'd been told for years that this was his life now, that he would never see Michonne or his children again, and that he just needed to accept it. In the closing scene of the pilot, it certainly appears as if he'd come to accept that.

It's not clear if he's completely given up on escape, or if he's maybe decided that the wiser course might be to join Okafor's internal resistance and try to change the Civic Republic enough from the inside so that it's people are free to leave (his refrain in the episode), which would free him to find his wife and family.

Throughout this premiere, there were dream sequences between Rick and Michonne, demonstrating the incredible chemistry between Lincoln and Gurira. They just light up the screen when they're together. They don't even have to say anything, and it all still comes through.

At the end of the episode, Lincoln is flying a helicopter on a mission run with Okafor when they get shot down. Okafor dies instantly while the chopper crashes with Rick and his fellow soldiers inside, injured but alive.

They emerge into chaos with his men quickly getting mowed down, and Rick nearly sharing their fate before his assailant rips off his helmet. Upon seeing his face, she removes her own and we see Rick and Michonne reunited after years of her searching for him.

Next week, it looks like we'll get more of her story on that search. There were glimpses of it on the parent series and the lead-up to this one, but this second episode looks to be as much a deeper dive into Michonne's story as this one was for Rick.

After that, it'll be all about how Michonne feels about seeing Rick having joined in with CRM, seemingly abandoning his attempts to escape and return to her, as well as where they go from here. Clearly, they're on opposite sides at this point, but this could also be Rick's escape opportunity.

Does he want to abandon the mission to change the Civic Republic from the inside? Will the CRM allow him to leave at all with all he knows about their inner workings, and the very fact that there is a thriving metropolis -- complete with television broadcasts -- hidden inside of Philadelphia?

The answers will hopefully be revealed as The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live continues every Sunday at 9pm ET on AMC.