Will There Be The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Season 2?

They’re the ones who live — but will the Rick and Michonne Walking Dead spinoff live on for a second season? More than five years after we last saw them together on season 9 of the mothership show, Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira’s Michonne made their way back to each other for new series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. First announced as a trilogy of Walking Dead movies, which were originally slated as AMC original TV movies before being elevated to theatrical films, franchise overseer Scott M. Gimple then worked with series co-creators Lincoln and Gurira to retool those plans into a “prestige miniseries.”

Does that mean there won’t be another season? While the show’s creators have been tight-lipped about the Grimes’ futures in the Walking Dead Universe — which will continue with the previously ordered second seasons of The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — there are hints about what’s to come. Here’s what we know so far about The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season 2.

Will there be a The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Season 2?

While most miniseries / limited series usually have a pre-determinednumber of episodes, the term typically applies to series that aren’tconceived as ongoing series (like the original 177-episode Walking Dead show that ran for 11 seasons). 

AMC is billing The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live as a “six-episode event series.” However, when the Rick and Michonne series was announced with six episodes during a San Diego Comic-Con panel in July 2022, Entertainment Weekly reported that “those six episodes will not be a limited series, but rather the first season of a continuing series starring the duo.”

When The Walking Dead: World Beyond debuted with its 10-episode first season in 2020, the network described that spinoff as a “two-season limited event.” It was the first time the network announced that a Walking Dead series had an end point before the first episode ever aired; World Beyond ultimately aired a total of 20 episodes spanning its two seasons.

Will Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira return for a second season of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live?

Lincoln and Gurira have yet to confirm whether The Ones Who Live season 1 is a finale for Rick and Michonne, but Gurira said on a 2022 episode of Talking Dead that their series would “complete the story of Rick and Michonne.”

When asked by The Associated Press if he looks at The Ones Who Live as “a chapter to a story or a bow that ties up loose ends,” Lincoln answered: “I’d like to think both. I like to think that it would exist as its own thing, but with a dot, dot, dot afterwards.”

What would The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season 2 be about?

The recently-reunited Rick and Michonne are currently trying to escape the inescapable clutches of the Civic Republic Military: the shadowy force of 17,000 that helicoptered Rick away from The Walking Dead. CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate) tasked Rick and Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) with constructing a Cascades base where the Civic Republic army’s top brass will convene for a summit, suggesting their best shot at getting away is burning down the CRM and letting something better regrow in its place. (This has been foreshadowed since episode 1, when Rick recounted a story about his father burning their crops to save the family farm. Plus, flames are a recurring motif in the series, including on the fiery key art.)

There are still loose ends that could tie into a potential second season. On Fear the Walking Dead, Morgan Jones (Lennie James) exited that series when he tried to reach Rick over walkie talkie with a message: “I’m gonna come and look for you, whether you’re at Alexandria or not.” (Easter eggs referencing Morgan were spotted on The Ones Who Live, potentially hinting at a Morgan-Rick reunion.) 

On The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Carol (Melissa McBride) reached Daryl (Norman Reedus) over long-range radio to tell him through static that “… came back,” but the transmission cut out before Carol could tell him who came back. Would Rick’s story be complete without ever reuniting with Morgan or Daryl?

Will The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live cross over with other Walking Dead spinoffs?

Gimple has teased that the Walking Dead spinoffs could converge in a multi-show crossover, and that The Ones Who Live could potentially connect with stories being told on Dead City and Daryl Dixon.

“You don’t have to see any of these [shows] to watch any of these[shows]. But, if you are watching them all, you get little rewards thatyou might not have noticed, and I want to keep doing that,” Gimple told ComicBook. “So yes, thisstory [on The Ones Who Live] does potentially flow into other stories — and certainly, myoverall hopes and dreams are to pull everything together at some point.Whether temporarily, or on more of a long-term basis.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.