muses + musings

This post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead and the spin-off The Ones Who Live.

In the current times, chaos meets us at every intersection of the media we consume. Many often find themselves doom scrolling through social media, picking up the energy of hate, unrest, and frustration of the state of the world.  So, finding a show with a deep and meaningful love story is like a balm that so many of us need. Who knew such a story would be found in a show about the undead? The Walking Dead was the breeding ground for one of the greatest love stories on television. And its top spinoff, The Ones Who Live, cemented that love even more into history. Episode 4 of the spinoff, What We, came at the right time. At a time when we all could use a jolt of love between two characters who are meant to be on every level you could think of. I’ve watched this episode more times than I can count. The beauty of the acting, writing, and display of true love is something you can’t help but watch over and over.

The Writer That She Is
I can’t talk about the beauty of this episode without first waxing poetic about Danai Gurira’s pen game. She provided a masterclass on writing, inspiring me to focus more on my craft so I could one day write something as great. It’s one of the best-written episodes (if not the best) in the entire TWDU. Ms. Gurira is an award-winning playwright, so it’s no surprise her script read like an intimate play, yet it was still wholly true to The Walking Dead and the marvelous characters that are Rick and Michonne. The script shows how evident her love for these characters and their love story is. She created one of the best hours of television this awards season and was robbed of an Emmy nomination.

The Setting
The apartment they stow away in becomes the third character in this play between the two of them. It’s fitting that it’s an upscale apartment in a modern building that hadn’t yet been decayed by the world’s end. It’s frozen in time, much like Rick and Michonne’s love for each other. Though so much has happened to the two of them during their time apart, their love is still there, still strong, and still a once-in-a-lifetime soulmatism.

It’s especially satisfying to see Michonne in this type of setting. It’s similar to the apartment she dreamed of in the main show when we learned what happened to her firstborn son, Andre, and her boyfriend, Mike. We see Michonne admiring the decor and amenities of the apartment as if, on some level, she misses the luxury she was accustomed to in her past life. A past life that included a bit of a bohemian Michonne. Her college career choices spanned from writer to computer scientist to art history. It fits her character well because Michonne is a Jill of all trades, master of them all.

It was a compelling contrast with Rick, who became frustrated with the apartment’s modern technology. It’s the woman of the city and the small-town man who’s the son of a farmer. On paper, they seemed opposites, but they fit together perfectly in every way that matters.

The Passion
From the start of the episode, passion is evident. The palpable longing as Rick watches Michonne disrobe from her CRM gear into something more comfortable is thick. You can see the man salivating, and Michonne knows exactly the effect she’s having on him. These are two people who are deeply in love, yet they’ve been apart from each other for nearly a decade. Both probably had envisioned what finding each other again would be like thousands of times, but like many people experience, the real world did not live up to their dreams.

Michonne is on edge because Rick is not being the man she knows and loves. He’s pushing her away and saying things out of his character. She knows something deeper is happening inside his head but hasn’t been able to pull it out of him yet. Their argument in the apartment was intense, airing out years’ worth of frustration, longing, hurt, and the confusion between them since they were reunited.

The intimacy of their argument made the viewer feel as if we were eavesdropping on our neighbors instead of two fictional characters. Their words come out quickly and jumbled as if the passion overflowed out of them, trying to make the other understand their point of view. Mixed in with echoes of the smart house as if taunting them that they’re not at the right temperature, they’re not on the right page, and they can’t go on until the energy of their love is in perfect flow again.

The Family
Michonne has many beautiful attributes, but the greatest is her love for her children. She’s excited to find a book she knows Judith will love. The break in her voice when she realizes she was gone so long she missed RJ’s birthday is soul-stirring. The guilt she feels at leaving her kids, even though it was a mission she needed to see to the end to bring their family back together, is another layer to the pain she had to endure over almost a decade.

RJ is the elephant in the room that Michonne was waiting to reveal to Rick at the right time. However, she’s so angry that she lets it slip the two of them now share more than one living child. The reveal of Rick’s namesake was written perfectly; a slip of the tongue, and instead of a huge display of emotion, it made Rick retreat even further into the lies he was telling himself. It added another layer to the scar tissue of his trauma, making him even more afraid to come alive again. The dream he had envisioned with Michonne before he was brutally kidnapped had come true, but the blessing of their son fueled a nightmare in Rick of what the CRM would do if they ever discovered his family.

Though there are signs that Rick is elated that he has another son, the tiny smile when Michonne tells him RJ calls himself The Little Brave Man shows that the real Rick Grimes is still there, still loving his family as much as ever, but trauma is not an easy obstacle to overcome.

Resistance and Heartbreak
Michonne has her own untreated trauma that she had to live with since Rick was taken away. She was grief-stricken while pregnant and experienced unthinkable torture at the hands of a “friend,” all while trying to keep an infant and a toddler safe, fed, and loved. It was enough to break anyone, but she kept going because she had no choice.

The weight of all her emotions reaches its breaking point when she can’t think of any other reason Rick is pushing her away and refuses to come home; besides her fear, he doesn’t love her anymore.

Rick may be trying to push her away, but he can never let her think his love for her has faltered. He immediately tells her that he has never stopped loving her. It helps thaw the ice between them for a moment, but doesn’t last.

As if a greater force was on their side, they were finally gifted with a perfect way to escape the clutches of CRM. The helicopter they were on crashed, and they would be presumed dead. Of course, Michonne is thrilled because, to her, it means they can make a clean break, but her hopes are dashed immediately when Rick tells her he still can’t go home with her.

“You’re lying to me. You keep lying to me.”

Michonne is fed up with Rick’s resistance. She’s done all she could to reason with him, to make him see his plan to not come home with her, home to their children, so he can somehow, maybe change the CRM one day makes no sense. So she grants him his wish and leaves.

Rick is immediately shocked. It shows it wasn’t what he truly wanted. Fear made him push her away, but he never wanted her to leave without him.

We see them both fighting with themselves. Michonne’s heartbreaking single tear as she waits in the hallway, hoping Rick, her Rick, will follow her and stop her from leaving. Rick, on the other hand, is internally struggling with his head and heart. His head tells him that he must stay to keep Michonne and their children safe, but his heart wants to jump out of his body, follow Michonne, and never let her go.

As his heart wins out when he sprints with an absolute look of anguish on his face at the thought of losing her again,

I Only Feel Safe When I’m With You
Another aspect of Danai Gurira’s spectacular writing is her infusing moments of comedy and levity into an otherwise heavy script. Michonne is at her wit’s end with Rick’s military speak. It’s not him. She knows it, and deep down, he knows it too. That’s why her sarcastic phrase of calling him “Comando” gets under his skin with his offended mumbling. He knows she sees right through him, but he’s still too stubborn, too entrenched in his trauma to back down.

They take cover in the building’s gym, which leads to one of Michonne’s saddest truths. Rick is frustrated that Michonne doesn’t understand that everything he’s doing is to keep her safe. She then drops the bombshell, saying that she only feels safe with him. This is a heart-wrenching admission. They’ve been apart for nearly a decade, and during that time, she experienced multitudes of grief and trauma and didn’t feel protected in any of those instances. She worked hard to keep their children and community safe but lived in fear for all those years. Realizing how utterly alone she felt for so long breaks your heart. Then she finally has her husband back, and he’s not acting like the man she loves. Rick’s “You shouldn’t have come” cuts her to her core. She’s already feeling extreme guilt about leaving their children, and then, the one person who’s supposed to be always on her side drains the remaining fight out of her with his words.

Danai Gurira’s acting is phenomenal because she looks emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted. She’s done all she could and doesn’t know how else she can reach him; how else she can wade through all the BS he’s spewing at her and pull the real Rick Grimes out of the murkiness.

It’s excellent storytelling that Michonne gets trapped under a huge chandelier shortly after she confesses to Rick she only feels safe with him. He immediately shows why she feels that way. He goes into beast mode as soon as he realizes she’s trapped. I love how he pays her insistence that he leaves no mind. That man would die a million times over before he ever leaves Michonne in danger. He’s either going to save her or die with her. And telling her she never has to thank him is quintessential Rick Grimes. Saving Michonne is not something he needs or wants to be rewarded for. It’s as natural to him as breathing.

A Love That Can’t Be Denied
No two people on television (or film) have more chemistry than Danai Gurira and Andrew Lincoln. Actors should study this last act to learn how so much can be said with body language alone. When they’re back at the apartment, the intensity of their emotions without either of them saying a word is off the charts. They’re longing to be with each other. Michonne’s near-death scare knocked much of the resistance out of Rick. Then there’s Michonne, trying to fight her need for Rick because she’s still upset with him, but they’re like two magnets. It’s impossible for them to be apart from each other. 

Rick inches closer to her to gauge if he has her permission to touch her. Michonne closes her eyes because she knows she can no longer fight her need for him if they make eye contact. Eventually, they both give in. The sensuality and intensity of their kiss could launch a million songs about the power of true love.

One of the many things The Ones Who Lives does better than the main show is the love scenes. Their lovemaking scene is beautifully shot. It wasn’t gratuitous or unnecessary. It was essential to the plot and essential for the audience to see them connect again this way. I was surprised that some of the audience members didn’t realize Rick stopped midway because he was having a panic attack. Everything leading up to that moment shows Rick had a myriad of conflicting feelings, and knowing Rick Grimes is to know in crisis, reality blurs for him. After nearly a decade of pain and loneliness, to have his wife, the love of his life, in his arms again, his mind was sending him distress signals that it couldn’t be real; it wasn’t possible for him to feel this good again.

Michonne immediately understood what he was going through. She was patient and loving, as always. No one knows him better than her. She knew letting him feel her heartbeat, to know she was real, would bring him back to her, back to reality.

Again, it was absolutely fantastic acting by both of them in the next scene as they lay in bliss. We see light in Rick Grimes’ eyes for the first time. He’s happy and content. He wants to discuss RJ; he’s joking with Michonne. He’s the Rick Grimes we all know and love. Michone’s smile lingers on her face, probably feeling safe and content for the first time in years.

One of my favorite moments is when she tells him it’s RJ’s good, kind heart that reminds her most of Rick. It’s obvious how much this revelation touches Rick. Michonne validates his goodness in a way he has never gotten from anyone else. No person has ever loved him as much and as purely as Michonne does.

Trauma cuts deep, so Rick still feels conflicting emotions. He brings up the CRM again. Michonne knows that something deeper is going on with him. She knows her Rick is still there; she just has to resurrect him from the clutches of the Sergeant Major Grimes’s alter ego.

As I said earlier, Rick goes into beast mode when Michonne is in danger; hearing the story of how she got that scar on her back mentally tears him apart. You can see it all over his face: anger, guilt, rage at what happened to her and Judith. Then, more beautiful writing as Michonne acknowledges Rick’s scars with his missing hand. She knows he went through hell to try to get back to his family. Again, the audience feels almost as if we’re eavesdropping on the intimacy of a husband and wife, showing care and regret for the pain each has been through.

Michonne knows they must figure out their next steps before stepping out of that building. They can say a lot to each other without words, but this time, she needs him to speak, to say what’s really going on with him. She knows she needs to hear the words, and he needs to speak them to release a decade’s worth of trauma. The imagery of the building falling down as the two of them tear down what’s holding them back from being together is excellent storytelling through metaphors (cue Beyoncé’s Halo).

Tying Carl into his trauma and what the CRM took for him was so satisfying as a viewer because killing Carl was one of the worst injustices committed by The Walking Dead. For a family man like Rick, losing the faces of his son and wife, the only things keeping him going,  is akin to death.

Rick says loudly and proudly, with no room for argument (though some still will and do), that Michonne is the love of his life and can’t live without her. He knows he can’t handle something happening to her; his trauma forced him to push her away. I don’t believe he realized what was really going on with him until Michonne pulled it out of him. Also, making it plain that
he was hurting her woke up something in him. The last thing he ever wants to be is the reason his wife is in pain.

Michonne giving Carl back to him was a beautiful symmetry with the main show. Only he could be the catalyst for Rick and Michonne to put their family back together again. He may be physically gone, but his spirit is always with them.

She hammers the point home that Carl wouldn’t want them to live in fear. He’d want them to bask in the love of their family in a world where the next danger is always around the corner. They need to love on each other as much as they can, while they can, and make every moment precious.

After Michonne’s rousing speech, more light shines brightly in Rick’s eyes. He’s fully back with her. Their being back is further cemented when they fight their way out of the crumbling building, perfectly in sync, a great juxtaposition to their fighting through the walkers earlier while out of sync.

Finally, Rick repeats Michonne’s words from his dream to her as they prepare to ride back to their children, and Michonne immediately recognizes it as something she would say is just a beautiful display of the soulmates they are.

To sum this up in a TLDR: the perfect couple, in a perfect episode, of a perfect show.