Judging by what’s now known about The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, the most important spinoff in The Walking Dead franchise went largely unseen.

Details concerning The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live go to show that one of the least popular shows in the franchise was arguably its most important spinoff. The seventh series in The Walking Dead universe, The Ones Who Live is on track to explain what happened to Rick and Michonne after their respective exits in the main show’s ninth and tenth seasons. Not only that, but it’ll also build on key developments from other spinoffs.

Long before the series itself was officially announced, the project that would bring back Rick Grimes was The Walking Dead’s most hotly-anticipated new installment. That hasn’t changed, even as new shows have been added to the lineup. It’s not surprising, though, considering that The Ones Who Live features the original protagonist of the main show, someone who’s long been missing from the small screen. Given the excitement around the series, it has a chance to bring in viewers who fell off at some point in the franchise’s history. Unfortunately, it’s become apparent that one of the Walking Dead shows that ultimately flew under the radar is instrumental to Rick’s spinoff.

The Ones Who Live Is Proving How Important Walking Dead: World Beyond Actually Was

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live trailer underscores the true importance of the second spinoff in the franchise, The Walking Dead: The World Beyond. Running for two seasons between 2020 and 2021, the show shifted the spotlight to the younger generation, allowing the series to showcase kids who grew up in the zombie apocalypse. While the protagonists were all original characters with no links to the main show, the same can’t be said of its villains. Defining the narrative of each main character was the CRM, the same organization that took Rick Grimes, and also the group that will clearly serve as the driving force of Rick’s next Walking Dead story.

The trailer proves that in addition to featuring the CRM as the main antagonists, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will lean heavily on World Beyond’s contributions to the lore. For instance, the yellow gas Michonne is seen running from at the end of the trailer can be identified as the chemical weapon the CRM used as part of their Project V operation in World Beyond. The Ones Who Live is also using Jadis, who featured in World Beyond. World Beyond acted as a crucial chapter in Jadis’ story.

What’s more, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is bringing in Terry O’Quinn as Major General Beale, presumably as the main villain. Beale’s existence in The Walking Dead’s world and status as the leader of the CRM were established in World Beyond. The show notably included a plotline where the World Beyond characters tried to use Beale’s son as leverage. Clearly, the references to Beale were meant to lay the groundwork for Rick’s fight with the CRM.

Why The Walking Dead: World Beyond Wasn’t More Popular

With the CRM as its villains, The Walking Dead: The World Beyond never hid its role as a bridge between The Walking Dead and Rick’s return. However, any impact that had on its popularity was limited. The Walking Dead: The World Beyond’s views dropped below 1 million after the fourth episode, and never shot back up. These numbers were considerably lower than The Walking Dead, even in its later seasons. Whether it’s because the underlying concept of the zombie apocalypse had lost its zeal with part of its audience or its core cast of characters lacked the same level of appeal as the main show’s, World Beyond didn’t emerge as a hit.

World Beyond Already Had A Massive Impact On The Walking Dead’s Mythology

Popular or not, World Beyond left a massive mark on the Walking Dead universe. After all, World Beyond was the show that revealed the true origin of the zombie virus that started the apocalypse in the first place. Its final scene confirmed that it originated in France. This amounted to one of the franchise’s biggest reveals, given that after season 1, the main show largely skirted the subject of the outbreak. It also set up zombie variants to become canon ahead of The Walking Dead season 11.

Furthermore, The Walking Dead: The World Beyond went into great detail in explaining how the CRM operates in The Walking Dead, what they want, and just how ruthless they can be. The CRM had made appearances in the main show and Fear the Walking Dead by this point, but the inner-workings of the organization hadn’t been fleshed out yet. It was World Beyond that laid out these concepts, quietly paving the way for The Walking Dead’s biggest hero to fight them in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.