Blame 'Bridgerton' for the latest 'Walking Dead' spinoff's 'epic love tale'

California, PASADENA "The Walking Dead" returns. Once again. Half a dozen spinoffs and sequels on AMC and AMC+ continue the zombie series, which finished in 2022. The newest chapter finds love in the zombie apocalypse.

Featuring original "Dead" characters Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira), "The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live" (premiering Feb. 25) will look and feel different from that series and others like "Dead City" and "Daryl Dixon

"It's a very different world now," "Dead" executive producer Scott M. Gimple, who has worked on all the programs, told reporters during a Television Critics Association Press Tour event in Los Angeles on Tuesday. "The Ones Who Live" looks at the world after the zombie plague through the post-apocalyptic viewpoint. Technology, military, and helicopters await pastoral fans. But electricity doesn't distinguish "Ones Who Live".

"It's an apocalyptic epic love narrative," said Gurira, 45, who produces and stars in the program with Lincoln. "The epic love narrative sets it apart from other worlds. We didn't explore it much on the initial series. What happens when love drives, propels, and moves the plot? Since Lincoln left the series in 2018, Rick and Michonne have been apart, despite their "epic" love. They aim to reunite these eccentric youngsters in the upcoming series.

"It was remarkably easy putting the cowboy boots back on," remarked 50-year-old Lincoln. Besides my knees hurting worse, it felt nice to be sheriff again. How did Rick and Michonne's relationship become the next series' plot?

"We watched a lot of 'Bridgerton,'" Lincoln said. "This tale has been coming for a while... Rick was intentionally put in a new atmosphere and mentality. They pondered, where can we put him after the main series' pushing, pulling, pummeling, and abuse? So a new journey... I hope the two characters meet and everything makes sense."

Major General Beale, played by "Lost" veteran Terry O'Quinn, is a new enemy who comes in the path of our zombie-hunter friends. "The obstacles of a love story, in a rom-com, could be a mistaken identity," Gimple remarked. "In this, the obstacles are the epic part, it is the horror part

A new season seems unlikely for Lincoln and Gurira, thus this narrative has a beginning, middle, and finish. In the "Dead" universe, you never know who will survive. "I think there's a ride that people are going to get to take," Gurira. "And I really want them to take it."

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