“Rest In Peace” initially made it appear that Rick and Michonne were together: both are seen sitting by firelight, writing, their voices alternating. During this moment we got the “Walking Dead” version of the “In Memoriam” segment of the Oscars, with sepia-toned clips of the many, many characters who have died over the course of the show. Rick says that he still thinks about them every day, “their faces, what I learned from them, how they made me who I am — so much more than all this made me who I am.” While Rick focuses on the dead, Michonne primarily addresses their two surviving children, Judith and R.J., and her longing to see them again.
But just as it appears that Rick and Michonne are gazing romantically at each other over the fire, the ending reveals that they’re still separated, and aren’t even writing at the same point in time. Rick is hiding out from the Civic Republic Military (or CRM, for short), and we see him hide his journal, boots, and phone in a bag. It’s the same bag that was later found by Michonne in “The Walking Dead” season 10, episode 13 — cluing her in to the fact that Rick is still alive, and inspiring her to go on a quest to find him.
Rick rolls up his letter and tucks it into a bottle, walking out onto a beach fall of helplessly gnashing walkers stuck in the sand, and flinging the bottle into the water. That’s when a CRM helicopter arrives and orders him to surrender, referring to him as “Consignee Grimes” and cryptically telling him, “Come on, Rick, it’s like she told you: There’s no escape for the living.”
