Is Michonne Coming Back to The Walking Dead?

Is Danai Gurira‘s Michonne coming back to The Walking Dead? The question was raised by Sunday’s Season 10 midseason finale, “The World Before,” which saw a tearful goodbye between Michonne and daughter Judith (Cailey Fleming). After a chance run-in with Virgil (Kevin Carroll), a stranded survivor desperate to get back to his family, Michonne learned Virgil’s home has weapons capable of destroying the Whisperers’ walker horde and ending the war against Alpha (Samantha Morton). A deal is reached with Oceanside, and Michonne agrees to sail away with Virgil to his island — a two-day trip each way — reuniting him with his wife and kids in exchange for desperately needed weaponry.

We learn Virgil comes from Bloodsworth Island in Tangier Sound, a place he says is both hard to find and fortified. His lack of a boat is what brought him to the reclusive and standoffish Oceanside, which suffered damage when Virgil inadvertently exposed the fishing community to a breach from walkers.

The plan, Virgil says, sounds too good to be true: he’ll hand over the weapons to settle his debts with Oceanside, and Michonne will take Virgil home before returning the borrowed boat to Oceanside.

It will be some time before we learn what happens on Bloodsworth Island, but we will see Michonne again: word is Gurira’s exit episode is Season 10 episode 12. That will bring Gurira’s total episodes this season to five, matching the five-episode run of Rick Grimes star Andrew Lincoln in his final season last year. (Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie, also appeared in just five episodes in Season 9 before she was written out; Cohan is anticipated to reappear in the back half of Season 10 before she rejoins as a series regular in Season 11 when it premieres in late 2020.)

Before Gurira confirmed her exit at San Diego Comic-Con in July, showrunner Angela Kang noted Michonne would be little-seen in Season 10 due to the in-demand Gurira’s outside commitments.

“Well, we are going to be doing some creative things with the order in which we write and shoot things so that she’s sort of woven in a little bit,” she told Deadline. “With Black Panther, Avengers and plays of her own and everything, I think Danai obviously is having an amazing career moment. She’s like an international treasure.” Kang also said audiences could anticipate what she described as “basically another one of these giant Michonne episodes” before Gurira departs.

There’s also the matter of so-far unseen closing shot of the Season 10 trailer that premiered at Comic-Con: there we saw Michonne wielding baseball bat Lucille in an image evoking the lineup once forced to their knees by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

“We saw a little clip of her in a mysterious pose with Lucille, so we’ll learn some more about that,” Kang said at Comic-Con. “I’m excited for people just to see the depth and beauty of her work, as always, and we will miss the hell out of her.”

TWD chief content officer Scott Gimple also hinted Gurira could reunite with Lincoln in the franchise’s first movie trilogy, teasing at Comic-Con, “She has some amazing things ahead of her and we’re not completely done with her, I’ll say that. We’re not completely done with anyone who comes and goes on the show. But she has some amazing things ahead.”

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