YMMV / The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

• Catharsis Factor: Rick and Michonne getting their happy ending reuniting with their kids is immensely cathartic. Especially Rick, who finally gets to meet his son he only just found out he had.
• Complete Monster: Major General Johnathan Beale, the head of The Civic Republic Military, appears as a benevolent leader, but is revealed to be the most dangerous villain ever faced. Beale became disillusioned over the state of the world and, believing that only the CRMs superiority can save it, thus schemed to completely Take Over the World under his rule. Having operated things in the background for years, Beale had ordered the massacre of the Campus Colony and Omaha Community using chlorine gas, murdering thousands without remorse. People inside the Philadelphia community are never allowed to leave, with it being clear that any place they go to will be massacred to protect the CRM's secrets. Giving Rick Grimes the Echelon Briefing, Beale reveals his plans of world domination, having Portland massacred completely to find an excuse to release Martial Law and throw out the Civic Republic Council, ruling everything with an iron fist as he strips the rights of everybody else. After establishing his position, he'd go on to massacre every remaining community in the country and then the world, and attempts to entice Rick on his side with a promise of sparing his loved ones, despite them being enslaved as well, and is left as a sociopathic madman who believes his own strength and superiority above all.
• Continuity Lockout: Zigzagged. The plot is easy enough to follow for a newcomer, but this series has the most ties to just about every other installment in the Television Universe. Familiarity with the other installments, particularly World Beyond, certainly rewards a viewer. The core premise is also the return of two major characters from The Walking Dead and the long-awaited follow-up on their whereabouts.
• Epileptic Trees: Given how Morgan left Fear the Walking Dead to reunite with Rick, many fans were expecting him to make an appearance in this series, but he never showed up.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Depending on whether Major General Beale is to be believed, he states during the Echelon briefing that humanity has less than 15 years to go before it wipes itself out naturally, due to a combination of a dwindling population, scattered settlements not able to share vital resources and the still-present threat of the walkers. As such, this can make the final scene (of Rick and Michonne reuniting with Judith and R.J.) a bit tough to swallow, given how it may mean they're all on borrowed time unless a major solution presents itself to the aforementioned crisis.
• I Knew It!: Many fans guessed due to some comments from Andrew Lincoln and Rick's left hand being conspicuously hidden in a few trailer shots that the series would finally adapt the infamous comic panel of Rick losing his left hand. Indeed, it happens in the second scene of the very first episode.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: While the focus on Rick and Michonne's character development is certainly front-and-center, some fans wish the series lasted at least a few episodes longer so it could properly deliver on the larger scale story that was built up of overthrowing the CRM given they've been the Greater-Scope Villain of the franchise. The ending of the series has the subplot quickly wrapped up in a Civic Republic newscast.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Echelon Briefing hinted throughout the series is finally unveiled in the Grand Finale and it does not disappoint. Wiping out Omaha was just the beginning; once Portland is wiped out, the CRM plans to seize military control over the CR and turn it into a military state with freedoms and liberties of its' citizens suspended. Afterwards, now free to do as it pleases, the CRM will march on the continent of North America and wipe out every single organized community until only the CR remains, with the implications that the rest of the world will suffer the same fate. Michonne also attends a briefing on the forthcoming massacre of Portland, and learns how the CRM has plants in many communities around the country, and how only 10% of Portland's children will be evacuated, the rest being left to die. Not since Teddy Maddox has a villain had such gravely dangerous goals and it's no wonder the CRM has served as the Greater-Scope Villain of the franchise to date.
• Tearjerker: We finally learn just why Rick has failed to make it home, and how far he'd gone trying to get himself out. He has spent years having people ram it into his head that he shouldn't try to leave, cut off his own hand to try to escape only to fail anyway, and was forced to join the military to try to find his next attempt to escape. Even then, he is warned by Thorne and Okafor that if he successfully made it home, the CRM is well aware of the Coalition and could easily wipe them out with their superior firepower and resources. Coupled with Omaha falling and Rick suspecting correctly that it was sabotaged from within, Rick loses hope to escape and return home. In his last letter to Michonne, Rick darkly references his letter to her while explaining that he's giving up, and decides the only way forward is to stay with the CRM.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many fans expressed disappointment with the quick losses of Donald Okafor and Nat. The former was the Token Good Teammate of the CRM and died by the end of the first episode, while Nat was the only survivor of the caravan's defectors and was skilled enough to shoot down a helicopter.
  • Despite the build-up since World Beyond, Beale only plays a minimal role as the Greater-Scope Villain of the series and only takes a direct role in the final episode which is largely his final scene.
  • Downplayed example for the ending: While Rick and Michonne finally reuniting with their children was the clear goal in mind from the get-go, many fans wished that we could've seen them reunite with all the other characters who survived the events of The Walking Dead (particularly Negan after his Heel–Face Turn), and hope that it happens in a future installment of the franchise.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The show begins building towards the idea of Rick and Michonne unveiling the CRM's atrocities to the CR and convincing the people to fight back against them. However, once the CRM leadership is decapitated with the destruction at the Summit, the plot is quickly resolved with a news anchor telling how the CR stepped in and changed things for the better offscreen.
  • The long-awaited reveal that CRM's plans, which had the implications of being done for the greater good, essentially amount to razing other communities across the whole continent falls flat, not just because it borders on blatantly nonsensical and selfish, but also because there could have been more logical and interesting reasons for them to undergo such drastic measures instead of a simple resources exhaustion.
• Unexpected Character: Gabriel Stokes returns in the fifth episode after his return had never been revealed by press materials or even foreshadowed by the series itself, marking the first franchise character to return besides the main trio of Rick, Michonne, and Jadis.^note not counting minor characters from the caravan