The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live – Gone

By: Kelly Kearney

After Rick chooses to sacrifice his happiness and join the CRM so his family remains safe. Michonne sets off on a journey to find him which forces her to make a few sacrifices of her own. On the way she meets three friends who teach her a valuable lesson in holding on to her hope while also knowing when to give up and go home. it’s a theme that keeps popping up in this spin-off and it’s going to haunt her as she is she makes her way closer to the last known place her husband was seen.

You Don’t Stop for Anything

Michonne (Danai Gurira) saves a woman, Aiden (Brenea Wool), and her boyfriend, Bailey (Andrew Bachelor), and in return asks their community leader, Elle (Erin Anderson) for a horse  The transportation would help her on her reach Bridges Terminal–the next stop on her mission to find Rick, quicker than by foot. That terminal is north of this community and Elle says “the Wailing” AKA Walkers have a massive yearly migration through there. They offer Michonne a place in their community until it’s safe to travel but she picks up on Elle’s motto to never stop for anything or anyone even if it means allowing their people to die. Enter Nat (Matthew Jeffers)– angry and ranting about the missing Aiden, who happens to be his best friend. He doesn’t notice Michonne in the room as he yells about being the man who holds their community together and how sick to death he is over losing his friend. He is so done with Elle, she left her sister out in the world to die and now he is ready to pack his things and leave. That’s when he sees Aiden alive and well and he is instantly amazed and impressed with the heroic woman who saved her. “You want your wagon?” He is ready to give her anything she wants to save his friend. Michonne isn’t the type to leave anyone behind, unlike the smaller-statured man who admittedly left the search after it got a bit sketchy. He feels that gut punch of truth when faced with her bravery and his face is full of apologies. Right away we can tell Nat is a smart and loving man with skills that outrank any limitations some might think his height could cause.

Later, a fully-packed wagon and a horse courtesy of Aiden who swiped her sister, Elle’s, is gifted to Michnne as a thank you for saving their lives. She can leave now, or stay for the night, and if she stays, Nat can show her some of the equipment he packed for her. This man knows armor and weapons, as well as a little something he invented called, “scream sticks.” Not only is he an engineer, Nat is just an instantly likable guy, He is so infectious MIchnne can’t refuse him or a good night’s sleep.

A Mission or Suicide?

The next day Nat fits her with a suit of custom-made armor and she looks ready to battle that migration of Wailers waiting for her. Before they say their goodbyes, Nat gives Michonne a journal to record her travels for when the radio she’s been using to talk to her daughter, Judith, eventually runs out of range. This prompts her to ask why such decent people like these three stay in a community that leaves their friends and family to die. They have the usual excuses that don’t seem to hold much weight for her, so with that, they go their separate ways. It isn’t long before we realize they weren’t lying about that migration.  It’s a sea of the dead and Michonne is one woman with a sword and a scream stick gun. She is vastly outnumbered. Standing in front of her own demise she shoots off Nat’s DIY weapon and it explodes one of the dead and sets another on fire. A flying decapitated head from the explosion knocks her off her horse just as the horde starts marching towards her. Michonne has no other way out of this but to die fighting. Enter Nat, Aiden, and Bailey, who show up at the perfect time to part that sea of Wailers with another one of those weapons. It sets some fires off in the distance and draws the dead away from left to right–clearing a path down the middle. Not only did they save their new friend but they also brought beer, a small group of other people, and a lot of stories for the campfire that night. It seems Nat was telling the truth–he was done with their community and how they treat each other, and since he is a bit of a leader himself, when he left, others followed. After a good time of drinking and laughing at Michonne falling off that horse, the conversation changes to that purple light she saw off in the distance that distracted her after she fell. It’s no surprise that was a Nat special–he’s a bit of a Mr. Science when it comes to explosions and building things, and he has more where that came from. Inside the wagons they’re traveling with, there are various explosive chemicals just waiting to go boom. The purple light was something he had been working on for a while; a weapon to clear the valley of wailers. He admits he gave up on perfecting it a long time ago and the disappointment in his voice isn’t lost on Michonne. She must assume he abandoned his plans for the community they had just left. She can’t understand why these three would want to be a part of that group who leaves friends behind but Bailey admits that’s why they came to find her. She shows them another way, and besides, they’re invested in this whole husband-finding mission and want to see it through. Nat adds that Michonne gave them the courage to leave when she proved that to survival means more than building and burning. He’s implying the key is loyalty to friends, family, and community–something she has but they never did. With that, he promises to take her as far as she needs to go. She is so impressed with their kindness that she counters with an offer they can’t refuse. After she finds Rick, they are all welcome to come back with her to Alexandria and become a part of her community. Of course, Michonne has no idea that Alexandria has been under siege and her children and friends are now living in another community. She’s been gone for a long time. Be that as it may, she is smart enough to realize Nat would make a good addition because Alexandria needs a lot of rebuilding.

“You’ve Got to Know When to Go!”

After Nat goes to bed we find out why Aiden needed to be rescued. She’s pregnant, and with cravings for honey, Bailey saw a billboard for a big box store on one of their outings. He went to go find some knowing that honey never spoils but he didn’t come back, so she went to look for him. That’s when the two got trapped by the dead and Michonne stepped in to save them. Knowing the road is no place for a pregnant woman, she tells Aiden to go home and she will tell her what to say so her allows her back in. She tells her to take a few of the others traveling with them because safety comes in numbers. Aiden agrees, but not until after they find Rick. The location isn’t far, and she and the others are invested in this. The next morning they hit the road with a larger group than Michonne realized. They all followed Nat, trusting his leadership and his faith in her. On their travels, we learn more about Nat and how he was bullied mercilessly by his peers growing up. He processed his anger by going out in the woods and blowing stuff up–arguably not the best way to deal with anger, but it worked for him. Enter a man named Danger, the boyfriend turned new husband of his overworked mother. Nat spent a lot of time with Danger–who saw what a brilliant kid he was and hoped he would channel his mind down a different and less dangerous path. Instead of blowing things up, Danger pretended to need inventions to make his life easier and put Nat on the job. The young man built him a ramp to get into his truck, and a timer to turn off the stove, and as Nat is telling these stories he starts to realize Danger never needed those things, he just wanted to keep the boy’s hands busy creating instead of destroying. Michonne realizes how much Nat cared about this stepfather and how much of who he is now is the direct result of being raised by a man named Danger. Those building skills quickly come in handy when the group spots a CRM helicopter circling the skies above them. As it flies past they see it turn around and that’s when all Hell breaks loose. The helicopter drops chlorine gas bombs onto the streets around them. Michonne screams for everyone to scatter, but it’s too late–the gas overwhelms most of them and they can’t escape the thick green smoke sucking their lungs dry. This chemical warfare prevents you from inhaling oxygen, killing you slowly through asphyxiation. If you manage to survive, it takes months for your lungs to recover. The blood-curdling screams quickly turn to chokes and gasps as the group traveling with Michonne starts dropping to the ground and Walkers emerge in the smoky chaos. It’s an instant death for most of them, but Michonne, Nat, Bailey, and Aiden, find safety inside a mall. All four are clinging on to life as they make their way to a furniture store to lie down. Aiden is seemingly in the worst shape of them all and she croaks out a warning to Michonne to go back home to her babies before it is too late. It is too late for her and her unborn child and Michonne knows it. She tells Bailey she saw a medical supply store nearby and they probably have oxygen tanks. She will go but, he needs to tie Aiden to the bed and not fall asleep next to her, she doesn’t have much time. Choking and wheezing Michonne drags a wagon full of oxygen tanks back to the mall, but it is too late, Aiden has turned and so has Bailey leaving Nat the only survivor from the group. She finds him crying and struggling to speak but he does squeak out a, “She [Aiden] was right. When you can, you need to go home. It’s been too long. He’s gone.” It’s the trauma talking, but Michonne isn’t giving up now.  She affixes an oxygen mask to him and herself and the two spend about a year watching the seasons change through the mall’s skylights– every day getting a little bit better. They managed to find food, shelter, and plenty of time to regret the situation they were in. Nat reminds her that he knew when it was the right time for him to leave his community and she will have to figure out when it is the right time to leave this mission and go home. Michonne is too stubborn for that and spends her days building up her strength up as she stares at Rick’s boots and the cell phone she found that proved to her he was still alive.

“This is All I’ve Got”

Eventually, they’re healthy enough to leave but Michonne has no intention of risking Nat’s life. She draws him a map to Alexandria and tells him to go to her home, but there is no way he is splitting up from her. She is all he has now, so wherever she’s going he’s right beside her. She asks him “You coming… is it about seeing how it ends?” Cryptically staring into the flame of a Zippo lighter, he says, “No. I know how it ends.”

With her little wagon packed with supplies, Nate and Michonne make their way to Bridges Terminal and instantly the panicked wife starts searching the ruins and piles of dead burnt bodies. Whoever was there, they are dead now and all she can do is pick through the corpses looking for any signs of Rick. Her faith is shaken and hope dwindling and it forces her to hold Rick’s boots to her chest like it’s the last piece of him she will ever find. The boat she found those on came from this terminal and Nat points out how all of the bodies they saw were shoeless. It’s a bad sign, but Michonne still feels Rick with her even if the visuals of that terminal are hard to deny. Nat also translates the message in Japanese written on the phone Rick left for her to find. It says, “believe just a little bit longer,” and he thinks she should listen to that message but still go home. She can believe that he’s out there and she can also take that belief home to her children. She’s starting to question this mission and realizes it has been so long that  if Rick were alive, he would have come back home. Nat pulls out the radio she was traveling with and as the static comes across the broadcast he says, “This is not giving up.” Breaking down into tears and pain Michonne shakes her head knowing he is right, it’s time to go back to Alexandria.

“I’m Not With Them”

Flash forward to the present and the two travelers are making their way through the woods. They are a few days away from the radio’s range and Michonne finally hearing her daughter’s voice again. Before they get a chance to find a camp for the night Nat spots a helicopter in the distance. The CRM is back and this time they’re going to fight fire with fire. the two of them decide they’re no longer running from these killers and Nat yells to Michonne to grab the wagon as they prepare to fight. He straps on a homemade missile launcher and shoots the helicopter out of the sky! We know that Rick’s helicopter went down in the woods after an incoming missile attack that led to a fight with fiery walkers. Rick and Michonne have been circling each other and they didn’t even know it. Once the helicopter goes down Michonne knows they’re out in the open and they’re going to have to fight or die. As survivors emerge from that crash are going to have plenty of open space to surround them, so she and Nat get ready for war. He provides cover fire while Michonne charges the line taking the lives of any injured soldier she finds. One by one she rips their masks off and slits their throats until the unimaginable happens. One soldier crawling through the dirt to grab his gun, fights her off until she pulls his mask off it’s the reunion everyone’s been waiting for. Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is staring back at her! After shocked tears, the fans finally get their emotional reunion as the two embrace in years of anguish. They can hardly contain their joy as they kiss, and in that reunion the world seems to stop spinning. Their relief and exuberance don’t last long, as they barely have a moment to talk before Rick starts panicking about the soldiers coming to save him. He tells Michonne they cannot run, they will be found. The only thing she can do is lie and say she came out of the woods when she saw the helicopter go down. He gives her a story to tell them about surviving on her own after her community fell. He makes it clear more than anything, she cannot tell them her name or show them her strength. They cannot know the two of them are married but especially that she is a strong and fearsome warrior. At this point, Michonne is starting to realize her husband has been beaten down by these people and any hope of escaping them is crushed from his mind. He might say he’ll find a way for them to escape but it’s been years and she knows he hasn’t yet. Suspicious, but still elated she’s found him, Michonne agrees to go along with this because she’s not about to leave him behind now. That’s when Nat shows up shocked at what he sees and asks if that’s him. Before Michonne can answer one of the dying soldiers reaches for his gun and shoots Nat from behind. The man falls to the ground choking and begging Michonne to let him know if that was really him. She tells him it was and in his dying breaths he reminds her, “You can still believe and still know when to go.”

And she does, because the next time we see Michonne she is nailing her interview with the CRM. Dana– her new identity, has been added to the consignee team. Shemanages to fly under their radar enough to sneak off for make-out sessions with Rick, who tells her of his escape attempts but she never tells him about R.J.. It’s clear that this place has broken a part of her husband and she can’t entirely trust him yet. We find out later why that was a good idea when he meets with the all-knowing Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) who is already onto them. Michonne is slowly starting to get a grasp for this new world after she gets a peak at the vast military protecting it’s secretive existence. Now she knows why Rick gave up trying to escape, the moment the CRM finds out who she is, who her children are, and where they come from, they will kill everyone back home. Rick said there was no escaping this place, but something in his wife’s eyes says she will never give up trying. With, or without him, she will know when it’s time to go.