Cocreator Scott M. Gimple joins the pair in discussing that very rare and very unusual Rick and Michonne scene.
Warning: This article contains spoilers aboutThe Walking Dead: The Ones Who Liveepisode 4, What We.
Well, that just happened.
Danai Gurira and Andrew Lincoln on ‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’.Gene Page/AMC
The most significant event was one that is very rarely seen in this franchise a full-on sex scene.
And a very atypical sex scene at that.
(We needed a time out, explained Michonne.)
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira on ‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’.Gene Page/AMC
Michonne eventually left by herself, before Rick caught up to her.
DANAI GURIRA:It’s a love story, for God’s sake.
We’re proposing a love story.
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira on ‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’.Gene Page/AMC
So at some point, they have to make love.
It’s really that simple.
It needed to have a character moment in it that allowed for something to shift.
Even if the audience doesn’t fully get what it is.
It isn’t just like them going at it.
There’s an arc to the sex scene story being told there.
It’s also the thing he fears, the loss of her.
That informs Michonne, that she can’t just blast him into making sense.
There’s something deeper going on here that he can’t verbalize.
She has to help him get through in a different way.
That’s going to happen most likely in that most vulnerable space.
So it’s a love story, and at some point, we’ve got to see some lovemaking.
We do see Rick struggling during that scene with the intimacy.
ANDREW LINCOLN:Yeah, I think it is about pain.
I haven’t got the capacity to do this again.
I’ve worked out how to die and live again.
It’s not just resolved by their intimacy.
It explains a lot of his behavior prior to this meeting.
Its not time to go."
So the scene was about a real intimacy, a sort of frightening intimacy.
This is a part of his personality he has shut down.
It’s almost like he’s trying to stop himself from feeling this love again.
She sees that and she just says, “Just trust.
We’re the same…” I find it very moving.
He’s denied that connection for the sake of living on in this half-life for the CRM.
Danai, what was it like bossing around your costar on the episode?
GURIRA:There were stages.
In the beginning, it was tricky.
Then, it became very easy.
LINCOLN:It’s true.
Because I have a propensity to say no instantly to everything.
Its a workload thing.
I go, No, no.
Then I read it a second time and I go, Actually, it’s brilliant.
What am I talking about?
Let’s do it.
GURIRA:Oh, he’s maddening.
[Laughs] But no, he was amazing.
Because it was a lot of heavy lifting for him, and it was intended that way.
I’m like: Okay, this is a fantastic actor.
I want to give them a workout.
I want to give them something worthy of all they are capable of.
I want them to be like, Holy crap, can I do this?
Because I knew that of course he could and that he would be fantastic.
It was a lot.
But he was fantastic.
Yeah, because its not just a standard sex scene.
Theres much more going on here, with Ricks emotional reaction to the act.
They’re able to have that sort of moment of recognition of how real things are.
I did not read it that way at all.
GURIRA:Honestly, I never even thought of the impotence idea either.
It was never the intention.
They’ll catch up.
Then I went, Oh, I see.
Then I was all in.
GURIRA:Yeah, you were.
You were entirely all in.
He did a beautiful job.
Thats what I was after.
GIMPLE:They get home and everything’s great!
It was very weird to do those last two episodes because everything’s fine after that.
There are no problems.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
