The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 recap: The return of Rick

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live has officially premiered, with the first new episode letting viewers in on what Rick Grimes has been up to — here’s the full Episode 1 recap.

Since the end of The Walking Dead, diehard fans have been finding new ways to continue exploring the walker-verse with the countless spinoffs now in its arsenal. The newest, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, focuses on Rick and Michonne trying to find each other after years apart.

Rick was absent for the final two seasons of the main series after “dying” in a bridge explosion, leaving Michonne and the others to assume his fate. But when Michonne finds clues suggesting he’s alive, she sets off on a journey to track him down and reunite them.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is a grand love story set over several years. Here’s the Episode 1 recap, with everything you need to know. Warning: major spoilers ahead for Episode 1!

Rick makes a sacrifice

Rick Grimes might have left the others believing he’s dead, but in the first episode of The Ones Who Live, he’s very much alive. His big return, however, is an uneasy one. Sitting in a room and watching footage of what appears to be a city in turmoil, he takes a piece of glass and holds it to his throat, contemplating suicide. After a moment, he backs down.

Five years after the bridge explosion in The Walking Dead, Rick has been taken in by the Civic Republic Military, a self-governing body that protects the city of Philadelphia. Rick is being ordered to kill walkers alongside a group of other survivors in the nearby woods. When instructed, Rick starts taking down the undead with an axe, plowing ahead until he’s out of sight from his guard, who pulls back on his restraints.

While still hidden, Rick makes the horrifying decision to chop off his hand to free himself. (It’s the chop heard around the world for TWD fans, who’ve been waiting for this graphic novel moment for years.) After cauterizing the wound, he’s quickly tased by one of the guards. He falls conscious, bleeding out.

Welcome to the CRM

Clearly, Rick isn’t able to accept his new setting. He has recurring dreams of a beautiful park in which he meets Michonne. Alas, Rick always wakes up back in his room at the CRM base. We’re told that after his near-death experience, he woke up in a military hospital run by the organization.

But, in a way, he’s very much their prisoner. Their code is “security and secrecy above all”, meaning nobody can ever leave the city, Rick explains. Those like himself (“consignees”) who are rescued are put to work on the outskirts of the city for a minimum of six years, where they prove themselves with tasks such as killing walkers or growing food.

But Rick has no intention of proving himself. Instead, he plots to escape, a feat which he has attempted (and failed) several times before. But the one-handed Rick does his duty in the meantime by killing walkers at the border, guarded carefully by a commander named Okafor, who prevented Rick from being punished for his earlier escape attempt.

Okafor wants Rick to advance as a soldier within the CRM, thinking he can be useful. Rick, rejecting Okafor’s help, goes back to work, unleashing a rage-filled rampage on the walkers in front of him until he collapses, covered in blood.

Rick the soldier

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When Rick heads back to the base, a female consignee, Thorne, throws a glass at him. She then tells him that she should really thank him, because by losing his hand for nothing, he confirmed to her that escape is impossible.

Later, Rick sits on a bench overlooking the river, staring at the city on the other side. His friend Garcia comes up to him and jokes about his missing hand. Garcia tells Rick that it’s his last day of consignment, and he’ll be in the city tomorrow. (Which has air conditioning, he says proudly.)

Garcia remarks that Rick may as well join the soldier training program to get them off his back, saying he should make his next escape attempt when the soldiers take him out scavenging. This idea clearly sticks with Rick, who gets lost in thought — the cogs turning on his new plan.

For the next year, Rick trains as a soldier. He learns to fight, meets with Okafor in his greenhouse, and gets an (admittedly awesome) new prosthetic for his arm, retractable blade and all. He becomes a capable and dedicated soldier, yet still dreams of Michonne on the park bench, who coyly tells him that she’s there everyday.

Secrets in the CRM

One night, Okafor sneaks Rick and Throne outside. He then lets them on on a plot of his own: he wants to train them to become leaders within the CRM. (All this despite Rick trying to escape and Thorne admitting that she tried to kill Okafor once.) He also shares the inner workings of the operation: when survivors arrive, they are designated as either ‘A’s or ‘B’s.

As are strong-willed and capable, while Bs are everyday folk who are just trying to survive. Okafor reveals that As are typically sent away and killed because they are deemed too independent and unwieldy, while Bs are sent into the city. Rick and Thorne are As, but he wants them alive. He believes that they can change things.

Rick is unwilling to move up in the ranks, but ultimately, has no choice. He explains that two other cities were able to provide sanctuary amid the ongoing zombie takeover: Portland and Omaha. (Also known as the The Alliance of the Three.)

Friends and foes

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Rick and Thorne continue to train until, one day, Rick is sitting on the bench by the river when he’s interrupted by Major General Beale. He reveals to Rick that Okafor was in the US Air Force, and comes right out and asks Rick if Okafor is up to anything. Rick lies, telling him no.

Rick continues to work on his escape plan, studying maps and blueprints of the underground pipe system. In the city, he meets up with Garcia, who’s now a water manager. He asks Garcia to help him by revealing more information about the tunnels.

Initially, Garcia refuses. But he eventually opens up, sneakily telling Rick that the tunnel will take him out east. Clearly, he doesn’t think Rick is going to get away with it at all.

Rick’s failed escape

Rick decides to enact his plan while on a mission. While he and the soldiers are at an abandoned chemical plant, he sneaks away and attaches his dog-tags to a walker corpse. He also cuts off its hand, hoping to trick the others. He’s surrounded by walkers, but distracts them with a light device.

But just as he’s about to climb into the pipes, he’s spotted by a small human girl, who screams. He runs after her, and Thorne saves them both. She knows what Rick was about to do, and forces him to return with them. Okafor knows what he’s planning, she tells him.

Rick then goes to Okafor and wakes him, holding a knife to his throat. Okafor reveals that he knows about Michonne and Rick’s family, which causes Rick to attack him. The two fight, and during the scrap, Okafor reveals that he killed his own wife, along with 4000 other people, by bombing Atlanta and Los Angeles for the greater good.

Okafor gets the upper hand and holds a gun to Rick, who takes the barrel and presses it into his head, begging Okafor to shoot him. If Rick can’t leave, then he certainly doesn’t want to stay. But Okafor refuses, telling Rick that a new base will be opening in a year, where commanders will hold a summit.

He wants Rick and Thorne to be in charge of the conversion. Rick pushes back, insisting he doesn’t want any power. “That’s the thing, you already have it,” Okafor tells him.

The fall of Omaha

Meanwhile, Omaha is destroyed in an event previously known in the ongoing universe as the Genocide of Omaha. (In World Beyond, we’re told this was enacted by the CRM to prevent a likely famine.) Rick and Thorne watch footage of the now crumbling city and question whether it was humans or walkers. Ultimately, Throne is convinced that Omaha fell because of their own ignorance. It’s clear she’s never going to be a true ally to Rick.

Rick and Thorne then begin their work converting the new base. As more time passes, we see the progress as they transform the building into a functional area. When the work is done, Rick burns his letters and his etchings of Michonne, telling her that he’ll do what he can to save the world. He’s now resigned himself to his new role.

In another dream, Rick is back at the park. He gives Michonne pizza and suggests that he could return with a wedding ring, to which she agrees. Suddenly, flames engulf Michonne as Rick has visions of an old house and the bridge explosion. Once again, he wakes up.

Back together again

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We catch up to the present. Rick is in a helicopter with Okafor, flying towards an undisclosed location. Rick tells Okafor a story from when he was 7 years old, when his farm caught on fire.

A young Rick came into the kitchen to see his father badly burned, terrifying his younger self. His father comforted him, but Rick shares that years later, his mother revealed that his father had set the crops on fire on purpose. Their farm was in financial trouble, so it had to be destroyed to save them.

Returning to now, Rick has finished his story when an explosive device shoots through the window and embeds itself into Okafor. It detonates, and Okafor dies. The helicopter takes fire and crashes into the woods, where Rick and the other soldiers stumble out, firing against an unknown source.

Rick collapses, and an unseen figure comes out, killing the other soldiers. Finally, they get to Rick and remove his helmet. Rick looks up, seeing Michonne above him. She looks at him and cries, finally reunited after seven long years.

What’s next?

Clearly, Rick’s had a lot to deal with over all this time. But we’ve yet to learn exactly what Michonne’s been up to since she left Daryl and the group behind in the original series. What new foes has she encountered? Will the CRM be after Rick once they find out he’s alive? All these are questions The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live are sure to explore as the series goes on.

If you’re looking to watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, you can find out how to do that right here.