‘A’s and ‘B’s: How ‘The Ones Who Live’ Solves A ‘Walking Dead’ Mystery

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Ones Who Live Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2, “Years” and “Gone.”]

It’s a question that has plagued Walking Dead fans endlessly—why was Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) a ‘B’ to the CRM, and what the heck is a ‘B,’ anyway? Throughout several spinoffs and a series of vague references, we’ve gotten closer to an answer. Now, with this week’s episode of The Ones Who Live, it seems we’ve finally obtained a concrete definition of who CRM sees as an ‘A’ and who it sees as a ‘B.’ Here’s what we know.

Do You Have an ‘A’ or ‘B’?

CRM’s method of classifying survivors goes all the way back to the war against the Saviors when Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) held Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) captive as an ‘A’ to turn over to the CRM. Other potential ‘A’s we’ve seen over the years have included Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Rick, whom Jadis anxiously downgraded to a ‘B’ as the helicopter was descending. Based on the new information we’ve gleaned from The Ones Who Live and Okafor (Craig Tate) specifically, we now know ‘A’s are considered leaders and strong survivors. Because of their unpredictable nature and potential to lead a rebellion or question the CRM’s decisions, ‘A’s are turned away or killed.

‘B’s, on the other hand, are “non-threatening” survivors; the sort of meek, unquestioning person Rick begged Michonne (Danai Gurira) to pretend she was just before her Civic Republic intake assessment. ‘B’s appear to pose minimal—if any—threat to the CRM’s control, and as such they’re offered the chance to gain admission to the Civic Republic through doing years of unglamorous grunt work. It would seem Jadis downgraded Rick from an ‘A’ to a ‘B’ during his final episode in order to save his life. If he’d been classified as an ‘A,’ he would have been killed. Because he was a ‘B,’ he received medical treatment and went to work clearing walkers.

Anne, a.k.a. Jadis, told the CRM she had a ‘B’, not an ‘A’.’

What Else Do We Know?

Some additional knowledge on the CRM’s mysterious classification system comes from spinoff World Beyond, which alluded to what happens to ‘A’s. In the show’s second and final season we were introduced to Dr. Lyla Belshaw (Natalie Gold), a CRM scientist who conducted experiments on subjects living and dead in order to determine the cause of the walker virus. The end goal, it appeared, was to eliminate the existing dead and to synthesize a cure. While Dr. Belshaw’s experiments were both unethical and unsuccessful, her walker test subjects were classified as ‘A’s. Do ‘A’s end up reanimated in CRM science facilities and used for studies? We don’t know for sure, but it seems a decent bet.

‘A’s are also highly valuable to the CRM. At one point Jadis’ admission into the Civic Republic was contingent on her procuring one (whom she had intended to be Negan, and then Father Gabriel). We still don’t know why ‘A’s seem to have the requirement of being bitten before being turned over to the CRM; Jadis nearly had a walker bite Negan, and she almost did the same to Gabriel before she let him go. We also don’t know why the CRM would defer to its soldiers’ judgment when determining who is an ‘A’ or a ‘B’—isn’t it subjective? It would seem the panel that interrogated Michonne makes the final call on who’s what, but that still doesn’t answer all of our lingering questions. For now, however, at least we have more information—and after years and years of speculation, we know why Rick Grimes was a ‘B.’

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC