Rick & Michonne Timeline: From The Walking Dead to The Ones Who Live

Eight years. That's how much time has passed since season 9 of The Walking Dead separated Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira), who watched Rick sacrifice himself by blowing up a bridge to save his family and friends from a herd of walkers. (Rick survived the bridge and was airlifted away in a CRM helicopter.) The series then jumped six years into the future to reveal an older Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) and her little brother: Michonne and Rick's son, RJ (Antony Azor). 

In real time, it's been more than five years since Lincoln departed the flagship series in 2018; Gurira exited the mothership a season later in 2020. After all those years gone "bye," Lincoln and Gurira are returning as Rick and Michonne in new Walking Dead spinoff The Ones Who Live, a six-episode event series premiering Feb. 25 on AMC. 

If you stopped watching seasons ago or need a quick refresher, here's everything you need to know to get caught up. (Read our CRM crash course about the Civic Republic Military, our guide on all the ways to watch the new series, and everything else you need to know about The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.)

The Bridge

19 months after Rick defeated and then spared Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to end the war with the Saviors, Rick and Michonne were building Carl's (Chandler Riggs) vision for a better future: the new world. As Michonne established a charter between the newly unified people of Alexandria, the Hilltop, the Kingdom, Oceanside, and Sanctuary, Rick oversaw construction on a bridge that would connect all the communities.

After legions of the dead merged into a massive walker herd that threatened to overrun and destroy their civilization, Daryl (Norman Reedus) suggested bringing down the bridge and washing the zombies out to sea. Rick refused to sacrifice the bridge at first... only to sacrifice himself by leading the walkers to the bridge and blowing it up to save his family and friends.

Rick appeared to die in the explosion but was found on alive on a riverbank by Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh), who radioed a CRM helicopter that she had a "B." The helicopter with the three-ring symbol airlifted an injured Rick away from Virginia to parts unknown. 

Episode: Season 9, Episode 5, "What Comes After"

The Body

In a flashback to about eight months after Rick's disappearance, Daryl and a pregnant Michonne scoured the woods for Rick's body. Daryl refused to return to Alexandria unless he found something, but their exhaustive search only turned up Rick's gun: his mud-covered Colt Python. "Ain't gonna stop looking," Daryl told Michonne of a hunt that took him to the ocean and back. "Not ever." 

Episode: Season 9, Episode 14, "Scars"

The Baby

Six years after the bridge, a time skip revealed Michonne and Rick's son, Rick "RJ" Grimes Jr. (The Richonne baby was conceived when Rick suggested "another way to build for the future" in the season 9 episode "Warning Signs.")

Episode: Season 9, Episode 6, "Who Are You Now?"

The Bag

Years after the bridge, Consignee Rick Grimes escaped the Civic Republic of Philadelphia with a handful of possessions: a kill stick, canned food with the three-ring symbol of the CRM, a journal, his cowboy boots, and a phone etched with Japanese lettering and drawings of Michonne and Judith. Rick tossed his bag onto a boat — marked with the numbers 672 — before he was recaptured by a CRM helicopter.

Episode: Season 11, Episode 24, "Rest in Peace"

The Boat

Six years after the bridge, Michonne embarked on a mission to a naval base on Bloodsworth Island, Maryland, where Virgil (Kevin Carroll) claimed to know the locations of weapons and munitions to help the survivors in their war against the Whisperers. Instead, Michonne came across boat 672, which Virgil said washed up on the shore during a big storm. 

Michonne found Rick's boots, the phone, and a logbook documenting the boat's journey from Tampa Bay, Florida, to Hopewell, Virginia, and then Bridgers Shipyard in New Jersey.

Episode: Season 10, Episode 13, "What We Become"

The Brave Man

Michonne (code name "Daito") reached Judith (code name "Shoto") and RJ (code name "Little Brave Man") over walkie-talkie to tell her children that she found "the Brave Man's" belongings. "If you think he's alive," Judith answered back, "then you have to go find him." Michonne wanted to head home to Alexandria, but Judith urged her to find Rick and bring him home. "What if he needs you more? What if he's trying to come home, too, but no one will help?"

Michonne said she would try and would head north to New Jersey, promising to try to reach Judith on the walkie for as long as she could. Judith told her mom: "Go get him."

Episode: Season 10, Episode 13, "What We Become"

The Belongings

After encountering a mass migration of survivors somewhere between Maryland and New Jersey, Michonne was seen with Rick's bag in the coda sequence ending The Walking Dead series finale. Michonne was years behind Rick, but their timelines will soon intersect on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

Episode: Season 11, Episode 24, "Rest in Peace"

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