After over 13 years and seven series, the timeline of The Walking Dead universe is hard to keep track of. The zombie franchise has even contradicted itself in the past. The return of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) brings even more chaos to the time confusion. Because the spin-off The Ones Who Live is a devastating calculation error undermined.
The Ones Who Live miscalculates and forgets an entire year of Michonne’s life
The second episode of The Ones Who Live follows on from Michonne’s exit in season 10 of the original series and her encounter with a huge caravan. With the display “6 years after the bridge“Their search for Rick is clearly located. But that can’t be right.
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Even Michonne can’t see through it anymore
After Rick was kidnapped by the CRM in a bridge explosion, The Walking Dead took the action six years into the future with a massive time jump. However, more time passes before Michonne finally finds a sketch of Rick’s life and sets off.
About another whole year passed between Season 9 and Season 10. This can be clearly seen in the character Rosita, who revealed her pregnancy in episode 9 of season 9 and had long since given birth to little Coco in the start of season 10. The Ones Who Live miscalculated by a whole year.
The Walking Dead timeline is constantly changing, but the Carl problem remains
Even if The Ones Who Live’s new timing is considered canon, it doesn’t eliminate a fatal logical flaw that has bothered fans for years. Warning, here comes some zombie math!
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Carl Grimes was aging way too quickly
At the beginning of the spin-off series, Rick witnesses a TV report about an attack on the Omaha community. This event was dated on the 10-year anniversary of the zombie apocalypse in The Walking Dead: World Beyond. After that, another year passes for Rick Grimes within the CRM, which he spends building a CRM base. So it should Michonne and Rick reunite 11 years after the outbreak of the apocalypse play.
Michonne only found her husband again after about a year of searching (she spent almost a year sick in a department store), i.e. seven years after the bridge disaster. Conversely, that means: Until Rick’s disappearance At the beginning of Season 9, only four years have passed in The Walking Dead.
Minus the 18-month time jump between Seasons 8 and 9, that leaves only a measly span of less than three years between the start of The Walking Dead and the end of the Negan War. The logic problem here is that over the course of eight seasons Carl Grimes has obviously aged more than just two and a half years.
But if there’s one thing we’ve learned in over 13 years of The Walking Dead, it’s that we shouldn’t take timing so seriously.
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