The Walking Dead: What is the CRM and why do we care?

For years, the terms Civic Republic (CR) and Civic Republic Military (CRM) have floated around The Walking Dead universe, but what do they mean, and why do they matter? The (CR) is an advanced civilization with more than 200,000 residents possibly residing in Philadelphia. The CRM serves as military and law enforcement within the CR, the leader of the Alliance of the Three, initially comprised of the CR, Portland, and Omaha, with its satellite location, Campus Colony.

The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Walking Dead: World Beyond have all featured stories involving the CRM. In TWD, it was discovered that Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) was trading people to the CRM for supplies. In Fear TWD, Al (Maggie Grace) encounters a zombified member of the CRM, and when she returns to film him, she finds maps of the US and is then tased and captured by another member. World Beyond would open the world of the CRM and shed much more light on what was happening with all the traded people.

In World Beyond, the CR was shown to be brutal with the ordered destruction of Omaha and its colony, which were part of their alliance. The same would have been done to Portland had a small group not intervened. This is vital information leading into the continuation of Rick and Michonne’s stories.

The Walking Dead series finale episode, “Rest in Peace,” featured a coda scene that saw the return of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira). This short scene reveals vital information regarding Rick’s disappearance and Michonne’s journey to find him.

This scene confirmed that Rick had been a prisoner of the CRM but did escape, only to be recaptured. This sets up the Rick and Michonne series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, which will be released on February 25, 2024, on AMC and AMC+.

The Walking Dead – CRM

If you have yet to watch The Walking Dead: World Beyond spinoff, you really need to do so. Most especially the second season, as that is where vital intel on the CRM comes to light. This series also reintroduces McIntosh as Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes, who confirmed she secured her admittance into this community by trading Rick.

In the second season of World Beyond, our survivors end up at the CRM Research facility, where experiments are conducted on people, alive and undead. This is where Jadis got her A and B designations when trading people to the CRM. To top that, under Elizabeth Kublek’s (Julia Ormond) command, they also planned a mission to destroy Portland, the third part of the Alliance. Jadis, who has a position of power in the CRM, ultimately lets Kublek take the blame for the failure and arrests her for treason.

The research facility is only one branch of the CRM, and there are likely many more corrupt people within this group. This group is quite a threat to our survivors, and the experiments could be directly responsible for the variant walkers seen in the final episodes of The Walking Dead and would explain their sudden appearance.

Viewers expect to see more of the CRM in the Rick and Michonne spinoff featuring Terry O’Quinn as Major General Beale, the ruthless leader of the CRM who ordered the bombing of cities.

The fact that The Walking Dead’s finale reintroduces the group during the coda scene signifies that the CRM will play a vital role in the spinoff series.

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