The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Breaks Franchise Rotten Tomatoes Record

The newest in The Walking Dead line centers around two of the original show’s most popular characters. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who led a group of survivors for nine of its 11 seasons, was thought by his friends to have died in a bridge explosion. But in the original show’s finale in 2022, Rick is shown in a military jacket that signifies his belonging to the Civic Republic Military.

In season 10, Michonne (Danai Gurira) finds some of Rick’s belongings and believes that he is still alive somewhere. Her character departs The Walking Dead so that she can search for him. When The Ones Who Live begins, viewers see that Rick has been held against his will by the Civic Republic Military over the last five years.

Rick finally resigns himself to his new role but is shot down by artillery while flying in a Civic Republic Military helicopter by an unknown attacker. After the chopper crashes and the surviving soldiers on board are all killed by the instigator, Rick faces the masked woman who orchestrated it all. She removes her mask, revealing herself as Michonne, reuniting the two Walking Dead characters at last.

The Ones Who Live‘s high score on Rotten Tomatoes was at the time taken across 27 different critics, of whom 90 percent received the new series positively. And though this is a huge achievement, it’s worth noting that other ratings sites haven’t been quite as overwhelmingly positive. The critical reception on Metacritic, using a different method of scoring films and television shows, posted a score of only 59/100 from the reviews of 10 critics.

The original concept for The Ones Who Live wasn’t a television series. The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman became involved in a project that followed Rick and Michonne over the course of a theatrical trilogy that was slated for production by Universal Studios. But in the years that passed since the 2019 teaser trailer release date, the series of three movies were reimagined into a television series instead.

Whether or not the strong critical reception of the newest series in The Walking Dead saga will continue will be an interesting question to ponder when more episodes are released. But if the first look into the series serves as a predictor of what’s to come, it’s safe to say that The Ones Who Live will remain high on the Rotten Tomatoes critic’s score for quite some time.

Other recent releases in The Walking Dead franchise have been slated for additional seasons. Season 2 of Dead City is in production. Additionally, the hit show Daryl Dixon has its second season in post-production, and its third season already in development.