"The key thing was of course, the fact that Rick has PTSD and that's very much what's driving a lot of his behavior and being in a place of that level of vulnerability, back with the love of his life in that way.
It's also the thing he fears, the loss of her. It manifests itself in a way that is visceral and leads to the lovemaking not just being about love, but the revealing of pain and trauma and fear. That informs Michonne, that she can't just blast him into making sense. There's something deeper going on here that he can't verbalize. She has to help him get through in a different way. So she gets to see him, as well, as he reveals what's really in there, the wound. That's going to happen most likely in that most vulnerable space." — Danai Gurira
"Yeah, I think it is about pain. As Danai just said, it's about him wanting her and then fearing what he's about to unlock again. He gets to sort of articulate it in the scene further in the episode, when he gets to say that, 'I can't do this again. I haven't got the capacity to do this again. I've worked out how to die and live again.' So it is an absolutely necessary scene that allows Michonne to realize that there's something really broken here, more broken than she's ever anticipated. [...]
So the scene was about a real intimacy, a sort of frightening intimacy. This is a part of his personality he has shut down. It's almost like he's trying to stop himself from feeling this love again. She sees that and she just says, 'Just trust. We're back. We're the same...' I find it very moving. I think it's a very, very moving scene, because it's about them connecting in a way that he's had to deny for seven years. He's denied that connection for the sake of living on in this half life for the CRM" — Andrew Lincoln
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira Discuss Episode 4 of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
danai gurira has truly blessed us w 1x04 of towl because what the fuck. we have a dark skin, non-racially ambiguous black woman showing her emotions unapologetically throughout the entirety of the show — specifically this episode. she’s able to be angry, upset, petty, and show guilt. be vulnerable. feel lustful and cry and do so much that we don’t get to see black female characters do on television.
not only did we get the rj reveal and them talking about their SON, but we also got them talking about michonne's branding and how she had to kill her friend, how she almost died getting to him, michonne carressing rick's amputation, rick crying while their making love, michonne's processing guilt over leaving her kids, bickering while killing walkers then killing walkers as a team while kissing intermittently, michonne being like "i dont give a fuck if this building comes down around us, sit yo ass down!", rick crying about how the crm took carl away from him, rick saying he wouldnt survive without her, they started in the apartment fighting and returned to it to make up, then riding off into the sunset with rick taking off his uniform!!!!