Recap of Walking Dead Scars: discover the horrible secret of Michonne

Since the beginning of the last seven year season, viewers of the venerable zombie series have wondered what happened between Rick's departure and the present that led to the break-up between the various communities and Michonne transformed someone who was trying to honor Carl's vision of hope into a hard sell so that anyone could suffer as long as his people were safe. Now we have the answer, and oh man. Oh man.

Last week, I wondered if the manufacturers of The dead who walk were aware that what they were putting on the screen was actually quite hilarious (it was about the first country-western group of the zombie apocalypse, The Highwaymen). I have this same question exactly after tonight's episode, because as dark as the answer to the mystery was, it was so ridiculous The dead who walk can remove … or even dare try to take off.

"Scars" is mainly an episode of flashback, juxtaposed in the present, with different degrees of finesse. Daryl, Connie and Lydia bring injured Henry to Alexandria for a medical check-up, then it's more like what we've seen. Michonne is not happy that anyone is coming to Hilltop and she is even less enthusiastic about bringing Lydia specifically. She lets everyone know that she is in agreement to be completely suspicious and refuses to show kindness to others. In fact, she already regrets to let these few people decide to attend the fair of the Kingdom (sorry, nascent republic of Alexandria). Daryl leaves soon with her gang to go to the Kingdom and inform Carol of what is happening.

We will return to the present moment in the present, but for the moment, let's go in the past, shortly after Rick's disappearance. It's certainly less than nine months since Rick became AWOL, and we know it because Michonne is pregnant and still looking for her child's father, just like Daryl was. She finds Rick's gun on the banks of the river. So we know at least how he returned to the Grimes family after the bridge became kablooey.

Then a new survivor is brought to Alexandria. Jocelyn! And it turns out that Jocelyn is Michonne's best friend in junior high school! What a meeting! As pleased as Michonne is to see an old friend, Jocelyn quickly implores the Alexandrians to help rescue her fellow survivors, who turn out to be all children. Hmm.

There seems to be at least a few weeks of harmony during which Michonne confides to her friend her search for Rick and to people who smile at an Alexandria full of hope and laughter. And then it goes to shit, of course. Michonne comes to see Jocelyn only to discover her and all her protections are gone. All food stores and medical supplies have also disappeared. Someone was killed. And several children of Alexandria are also missing, including Judith.

Daryl and Michonne, a very pregnant woman, are looking for the Kidz Club themselves, more for narrative convenience than intelligent decision-making, and locate them to a school, of course. Michonne spots the first named Lucas, who immediately pulls his knife when he sees Michonne. Honestly, child or not, it's a quite natural reaction to someone who comes behind you in the world of The dead who walkbut there is still something about it. Then Daryl arrives and other children shoot him with an arrow and a Michonne brain and they wake up both bound and hanging.

And that's where the branding strategy begins.

So, it turns out that Jocelyn is the Lord of his own Lord of the flies a bunch of kids and teaches them to be cold and ruthless killers with the goal of instilling the necessary survival skills from a young age, the most malleable. To mix literary metaphors, she is like Fagin, except that she orders that her accusations steal and murder and Jocelyn first asks Lucas and another girl, Winnie, to take a hot X-shaped mark and place it on the skin of Michonne and Daryl, which they do with confidence. (So, solving the mystery "Hey, why do Michonne and Daryl now have a giant X-scarring"?)

Jocelyn, of course, apparently does what is needed to help these kids survive, but she really seems to be another crazy, since tagging people is totally an extracurricular activity in the zombie apocalypse. It does not help either that she taught her children to sing "Mark, kill, kill our mark" as Greyjoy babies by Jim Henson or shit. After Michonne has escaped, is forced to kill Jocelyn and she starts chasing Judith, these kids are infinitely more interested in trying to kill the angry adult with the katana than to ensure their survival. How do we know it?

Because they continue to attack Michonne until she is forced to kill them all.

The oldest kid asks little Winnie to murder Judith and the other Alexandrian kids, basically to be fools, and the adorable tyke pulls his knife and heads to the camper in which they are locked up. Then the rest of the children attack Michonne Michonne trying to save her daughter and her own life at the moment. It is very clearly do not want to have to kill these kids, but they do not leave her the choice.

Yet, to see Michonne in the middle of a pile of dead children, with a kindergarten child who looks with a knife in his hand while deciding to kill his neighbor or run, is a banana trousers in the shape of cuckoo and bonker, and it is deeply absurd that this is the level that the series has reached in order to come out of the most truly traumatic moments for these characters after all the nightmares they have experienced. I do not know if I am in a very good headspace or in a horrible, but I made my way through this madness. In a sense, it's perfect Walking Dead"A woman determined to teach children to survive in this difficult world that has completely forgotten that survival does not mean" killing other people, even at cost price for one's own life ". Jocelyn joins this great pantheon of TWD characters who had always looked for a chance to become completely crazy and who were lucky when the zombie apocalypse hit.

In any case, this betrayal (and again, be forced to murder a school bus value of childrenThis led Michonne to close contact with the other colonies and barricade her people to Alexandria, asking all those who were outside her wall to go off. I do not think this title is as good as the show – I mean, so that Michonne can not trust her friend from twenty or so years ago, that 's it. It's not like that should mean that she should stop trusting Carol or Maggie after years together or other colonies that had not made her murder children – but I can live with it. I do not think it matches what comes later in the episode, but I can live with that too.

Back in the present, after hearing his mother tell Daryl and his gang that they wanted to go to the Kingdom, abandoning them, Judith slips out after dinner to help them. Michonne, of course, panic. After questioning Negan in search of clues (where he states some truths, but in more detail below), she rushes after her, finally finding her in the middle of a horde of tiny zombies and is doing well. Michonne, of course, always helps, and there is the standard fear of the zombie jump, but everything is fine.

When Michonne asks to know what she thinks she's doing, Judith is invoking the spirits of … well, I was going to say Rick and Carl, but given the time they've spent murdering people or to want to kill people, let's just say that it involves the spirits of Rick and Carl on their well days. Judith, played by Cailey Fleming at the age of 40, plays a phenomenal role in the world of Michonne. Michonne thought that Judith did not remember her coming out with the Kidz Club and its terrible consequences. This is why Judith did not understand all the draconian measures "everyone can fend for themselves" put in place by his mother. Michonne did not want to explain why she did this because she did not want to remind her daughter of this traumatic event.

But it turns out that Judith knows exactly what happened that day and has always remembered. So when she ran away to help the Kingdom, she did it with her adorable doe eyes, knowing what could happen – and she still chose to do it because it was the right thing to do. Michonne replies that it is important to protect those you love and that all she did or did not do was keep the people who matter to her, Judith and her half-brother, RJ Judith responds without fear: "When did we stop worrying about Carol? Maggie and the king?

Michonne has no answer to that. So at the end of the episode, she and Judith – in a horse-drawn truck, I guess – catch up with Daryl and the others and offer them an elevator to the Kingdom. Have divisions between these communities begun to subside? Has Maggie turned a new page? Did Judith save the day? Will the fair bring everyone together, as Ezekiel wanted?

Nah, because two Whisperers are watching the truck enter the kingdom, they now know where the realm is and Lydia resides, and Alpha and Beta present themselves as murderous and uninvited guests. But all hope is not lost! Because unlike Henry, unlike Carl, and most adults in this series, at the age of 10, Judith Grimes turned out to be the youngest person in the world. Zeal apocalypse, without any naivety. how dangerous people can be but still want to give them the benefit of the doubt and help them. Children are really the future.

Unless you had to kill them all, of course.

Assortment of reflections:

• It's strange to already love Negan after the painful aggression of the Savior's war, but this zen badhole happening in his cell is really great. While Michonne questions her, we learn that Negan told Judith stories about her father and Carl (including Carl's brave and hilarious and stupid solo mission to kill him), but that she responded to all of her questions honestly, which means that she knows what Negan did Glenn, Abraham and the others. It's pretty hardcore, and Negan says he really does not have a choice, because Judith can sniff bullshit at a mile and a half.
• That's good, but it's also a little emotional when Negan explains that Judith is gone because she's really Michonne's daughter – a person who will not take shit, she thinks she's lying awkward. This is both a useful clue to what Judith is preparing and a real compliment.
• When Danai Gurira (and therefore Michonne) will leave, I do not know how the series does not entrust to Negan, reformed, the responsibility of Alexandria. This is a solid drama, and you do not keep Jeffrey Dean Morgan out after losing the top three titles on your show. Well, you do not do it if you're not an idiot.
• Connie does not apologize to Michonne for taking Lydia to Alexandria so she can consult Henry, but she tells him that she would like to have better shoes. Connie is great.
• This picture of Daryl and Judith on the platform, knees bent under the chin, is simply super-adorable. Even better, Judith is also bothering Daryl because he is totally indifferent to the well-being of others. "What would my father do?" She asks. "I thought so."
• Do you think the adults really broke up and left Jocelyn and their children, or did Joc kill them? Since this is The dead who walkI think we can guess that she had the brand for kids and then to badbadinate them.
• The transition between the present and the past, which went from the manhole to the bar, was excellent. It was not particularly subtle, but it was about as subtle as TWD gets.
• One of the Kidz Club has a little katana, which is why and how Judith had her own mini-katana. I do not think that explains why the two swords are exactly part of the same set, but it does not matter. In addition, Michonne, an adult, and her samurai sword in front of a child with a small samurai sword, clearly showed how much these children were surpbaded, making their attacks even more pitiful and their deaths more useless.
• Nowadays, Aaron calls Whisperers "tricky tasks", which is a very good term, but one which seemed very dirty when he said it. It took me a while to remember that this was coming from Blade runner.
• So … a truck, with the cab torn off, pulled by horses. Thoughts?

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