The first (and possibly only) season of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live concluded today, and while it had its moments, overall, I feel the show peaked at the fourth episode, which I previously praised highly.
The reunion between Rick Grimes, Michonne, Judith, and RJ was one of the highlights for me. This was the payoff I had been waiting for since the beginning of the season, and I did not miss it. However, RJ’s line about knowing Rick would return felt a bit forced and inauthentic to me. It is not a critique of the actor, just an observation.
The theme of The Ones Who Live revolves around romance, and the show proved why Rick and Michonne have won fans as well as those who stopped watching after Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira left the Walking Dead. In my opinion, these two characters carried the show admirably and made sure that fans got what they wanted from the show.
In spite of that, I found it puzzling how the entire storyline about the CRM, which has been developed over the past three years across three shows, culminated in the destruction of one of their locations and was resolved within only six episodes. There was a slight hint of Fast & Furious in the plot as Rick and Michonne miraculously overcame a whole military operation in mere minutes, which seemed to veer into Fast & Furious territory.
As with other villains we’ve seen in recent years of The Walking Dead, Beale was ultimately disappointing and he didn’t live up to his potential, much like other antagonists we’ve seen in the past who were not up to par with their potential. Nevertheless, the actors gave their best effort with what they had at their disposal.
I feel as if the Echelon briefing is now irrelevant, because Rick killed Beale before learning about it. By Rick and Michonne’s actions, the decade-old CRM plan that seemed justifiable is now undermined, undermined by Rick’s actions. It is unclear at the moment whether CRM’s actions were ultimately justified, which severely undermines the overarching narrative that World Beyond, Fear, and The Ones Who Live were trying to convey.
It also does not help that the finale crammed what could have been five more episodes into an hour’s worth of television. That means it was rushed just to fill bullet points of the usual Walking Dead tropes rather than going for a structure to tell a coherent story. I still have questions left even after watching the finale. And despite me being underwhelmed with the Daryl Dixon spinoff, at least that was fresh and did not have too much of that Gimple-Speak and structure that we had for years.
Despite the fact that The Ones Who Live felt rushed, it crammed what could have been five more episodes’ worth of content into an hour. As a result, important plot points were glossed over, and many questions remain unanswered. In spite of this, The Ones Who Live is a very strong show despite its shortcomings. However, I wish it had more episodes in order to fully explore key plot points, rather than rush to a conclusion like a Disney+ series.
