Fans of The Walking Dead have waited for six years to see Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) reunite. And that reunion is coming in the form of AMC’s new spinoff series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.
When we last saw Michonne in season 10, she had left Judith and R.J. to go find Rick. The series will follow Rick and Michonne’s attempts to find one another in a rapidly changing post-apocalyptic world. During the press tour, Lincoln, Gurira, and the series producers discussed an unlikely influence on the show’s romance: Netflix’s Bridgerton.
“There was some Bridgerton homework that Danai assigned,” said showrunner Scott Gimple in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. Lincoln also joked that he watched a lot of Bridgerton at Gurira’s insistence.
Gurira said, “It’s not about relating to it, it’s about a love story that accomplished what it was proposing. It had a very clear world, it had very clear characters, very clear pursuits, very clear storyline arc.”
She elaborated, “The satisfaction that I feel, the reason [the show] is so popular, is there’s a satisfaction that the love stories cumulate and I wanted [Andrew and Scott], because of course they hadn’t watched it, so I wanted them — I would just text them key scenes, I’d tape them on my phone, just for them to see what this is and you see why this works, … There are really scenes where even the characters aren’t sure of what they’re doing, or they’re doing things that aren’t quite what they want to be doing or they’re working against their real goals or their real heart, but the love is clear and the language works with it so beautifully.”
Richonne has always been a major draw for me as a source of light in the dark and dreary world of The Walking Dead. Here’s hoping the spinoff series won’t keep them separated for too long before delivering the reunion we’ve all been waiting for.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres February 25, 2024, on AMC and AMC+.
