The Walking Dead: Rick and Michonne spinoff adds a Lucifer star to the cast. The Walking Dead’s new slate of spinoffs kicks off in June 2023 with Dead City, then continues later in the year with Daryl Dixon. The Walking Dead: Rick and Michonne becomes the last of the new trio of spinoffs to premiere when it arrives in 2024.
The Walking Dead: Rick and Michonne has indeed officially begun filming in New Jersey, and now there’s news about a new cast member joining Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, as Lesley-Ann Brandt is coming aboard in a recurring role.
According to Deadline, Brandt plays a character named Pearl Thorne, about whom further details are being kept under wraps. Brandt is most famous for playing the demonic Maze for all six seasons of Fox and Netflix’s Lucifer. In an Instagram post, Brandt teased her character as being "very South African" (Brandt herself is from South Africa) while also seemingly revealing that Hawkeye episode helmers Bert and Bertie directed her on Rick and Michonne.
Everything We Know About Rick and Michonne
The Walking Dead’s big 2022 series finale offered up a brief preview of Rick and Michonne, teasing that when the show kicks off, the famed Walking Dead couple is still separated. In the tease, Gurira’s Michonne was seen surviving on her own, while Rick was seen being menaced on a muddy riverside by a hovering CRM helicopter, the city of Philadelphia looming in the distance.
The official synopsis for Rick and Michonne is not particularly helpful in filling in more blanks beyond what was teased in that brief TWD series finale epilogue, only stating that “The series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world,” while offering more vague information like “Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors?” TWD universe overseer Scott M. Gimple is the showrunner tasked with conjuring the answers to these and more compelling questions.
It also remains to be seen how the newly-cast Brandt’s mysterious Pearl Thorne character will fit into the mix. She could be a member of the evil CRM, or she could be an ally Rick and/or Michonne meets during the course of the six-episode season. Bert and Bertie perhaps joining the roster of The Walking Dead: Rick and Michonne episode directors is itself an interesting development given their memorable work on shows like Hawkeye and Our Flag Means Death.
Source: Deadline, Lesley-Ann Brandt/Instagram