The first full trailer for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is finally here – and it offers up all the blood, longing, and zombie action we could hope for.
In the new footage, which you can watch above, we see Danai Gurira's Michonne set out to look for Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes. "I'm looking for him," says Michonne, armed with arrows and setting off on horseback. "I want to go north." The clip then cuts to Rick, who says, "My wife is my choice. My daughter is my choice. My life is my choice." We're then introduced to the "most powerful military on the planet," which Rick subsequently joins. The rest of the trailer sees buildings explode, zombies on fire, and helicopters firing at civilian buildings. Woof.
The last time viewers saw Rick and Michonne, it was right at the very end of The Walking Dead series finale – and the pair were certainly not together. Heck, they weren't even on the same timeline. You see, in Michonne's side of the epilogue, she appeared to be writing to Judith (Cailey Fleming) by a campfire and, more crucially, in the possession of some of Rick's belongings; an engraved iPhone and some boots.
In his scene, Rick is held up by a Civic Republic Military helicopter on a muddy bank on Bloodsworth Island, the place where Michonne found said belongings back in The Walking Dead season 10. With that, we could assume that Rick's scene happened in the past, while Michonne's is taking place in the present. While it's only been five years since we saw the former lovers actually share a scene, it's been almost a decade since they saw one another last, which is bound to make their reunion an emotional one.
Returning alongside Lincoln and Gurira in The Ones Who Live is Pollyanna McIntosh as Anne, otherwise known as Jadis, who was instrumental in Rick's separation from Daryl, Maggie, and the rest of his survivor family in The Walking Dead season 9. Newcomers include Matt Jeffries, as Nat, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Pearl, and Lost's Terry O'Quinn as Major General Beale.
The Walking Dead franchise's chief content officer Scott Gimple acts as showrunner for The Ones Who Live, which will consist of six episodes much like previous spin-offs The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.
"This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world," reads the official synopsis. "Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead … And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before?"
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The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres on February 25. Catch up with all things The Walking Dead before then with our handy guide on how to watch The Walking Dead franchise in order. Or, if horror's not your thing, have a look at our list of the most exciting new TV shows heading our way.
I am an Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.