The Walking Dead Recap With Spoilers: What We Become

The episode begins where Michonne’s journey on The Walking Dead began. She stands in the woods nearby the remnants of Hershel’s farm with her two zombie pets at her side for protection. She sees Andrea stumbling in the woods as walkers chase her. Instead of acting and rescuing her by killing the walkers, Michonne turns her head and continues on, allowing Andrea to be eaten and hearing her screams.

In the present of the real timeline, Michonne uncuffs Virgil from the boat they sailed out on. He promises his family is inland – with ammo and guns to help defeat the Whisperers. On the way, he grabs some herbs and points out that nearby building is an old lab infested with animals. She should stay away. Sign for explosive ordinance on the fence. Michonne catches on to his lies about his family but he has three graves dug, where he throws the flowers he picked up.

They head inside the buildings, killing walkers. Virgil accidentally blocks the way out, though it looked like it may have been intentional. Walkers are coming. Michonne uses a gurney to push the walkers back. She kills them, he just watches from behind the gurney shield.

Continued

In another room, they discover a mass suicide where a dozen people have hung themselves and reanimated as walkers. It is a horrifying scene. They agree to take it easy until tomorrow but Michonne wants to search the buildings now. 

Moments later, Michonne searches a dark room. She finds dead animals, they are merely skeletons. It looks like it could have been some sort of shelter in the past. Suddenly, Virgil traps her in a room, claiming he trusted her and she ruined it. She tries to bust out but can’t.

Michonne wakes up and there are more people on the other side of the room. There is food for her. The people explain that they used to do research with Virgil but stragglers came here by boat and they took in too many. Someone killed someone else and Virgil panicked and locked the place down. He didn’t know that his wife and kids were inside the room that he locked everyone into. Since then, these people have been prisoners. They encourage her to eat if she’s going to try to kill Virgil.

Continued

She wakes up later and sees Virgil again. He won’t let her out. She starts hallucinating and he claims this will help her. She is losing track of memory and time, repeating herself but he points out they’ve already had those conversations. He claims he was trying to protect his family but she mocks him for them not being proud. She suddenly gets very cold. Then, it’s warm, when he tells her to picture the sun. Siddiq appears in the room and cares for her. “You were supposed to protect us,” he tells her. “You let me die. And Rick. And Carl. What happens to Coco? What happens to my family?” Her hands are covered in blood. A walker appears and she screams. Then she’s back in the room seeing Virgil through the door.

She sees herself approaching with the chains which she used to hold her “pets” on. She is yanked into a reality where she let Andrea die instead of saving her and joining the group.

She later comes across Andrea’s devoured body. She is the person in the orange backpack who gets passed on by Rick and others in the green Kia. Daryl sees her and ignores her plea for help.

Negan finds her in the woods, with Laura at and DJ at his side. He explains that he’s not much for taking people in but he like michonne and her “big ole massive lady nuts.” He gives her the sword back and Laura tosses her an apple. She joins the Saviors.

Continued

In a continued take on Michonne’s hallucination of an alternate timeline, Glenn kills Laura in the satellite outpost. Heath tried to kill others. Michonne wakes up and kills both of them. She is present when Rick gums down Saviors and she escapes. She is Negan in the scene where Glenn was killed. Maggie, Abraham, Daryl, and everyone else is on their knees. He calls in his “right hand gal Michonne.” He hands her the bat. Sasha is nervous. He asks her to “wish them a happy new year from us.”

She gives a speech about Rick’s people killing Negan’s people. Everyone from Sasha to Rosita is looking on, terrified. Michonne gets in Rick’s face and calls him a coward. Carl is looking on. She points the bat at herself in the line up and claims this is her fault. “Welcome to the new world,” she says, before swinging the bat at Michonne in the line up.

The All Out War story plays out. She fights Alexandrians until Daryl puts an arrow in her. He kicks her down. She reaches for her sword. Rick points his revolver at her, the same shot from when he killed Sophia in Season 2, and he kills her.

Continued

Michonne wakes up. She’s throwing up. Virgil promises she will feel better and offers water. She stabs him with the fork from her tray. They fight and she gets out. She brings the others with her. They discover that Virgil has torched the boat.

They find him in the woods. She doesn’t kill him but she knocks him out and they lock him up. He explains to her that he sees his family when he trips and shares the dreamy details of it. He calls his trip heaven. She calls hers hell.

They head into a storage closet on a boat to find stuff. She gets her sword and a radio — but then sees Rick’s boots. She hugs them close and smells them as she becomes emotional. She throws Virgil against a wall and asks where he got these boots. He explains they washed up on the shore.

Continued

Michonne digs through the entire boat. She finds a log of information, including details of Virgil being from New Jersey. She finds an iPhone with a picture of her and Judith etched into it. She has a lot of questions for him and wonders what he did to Rick. Virgil insists he does not know. He suggests their meeting was not an accident and suggests getting the boat working. He suggests she go find him.

Later, they’ve packed up and begin to head out. Michonne wants to take some time to herself. She tells him that her people will take him in and give him a chance. He, instead, is going to stay here to deliver flowers to his wife’s grave every day. Michonne rides out in the boat.

In the boat, Michonne is crying over the phone. She gets on the radio and tries to reach out to “Jojo.” Judith responds. RJ chimes in and is reminded to use call signs by Judith. Judith tells Michonne that they beat the Whisperers and that “Alpha can’t hurt us anymore.” Michonne tells her that she found something that “could be really important to all of us” and it “belonged to the Brave Man.” She doesn’t know what it means yet.

Judith asks, “Is he alive?” Michonne doesn’t know. Judith insists she go find him and promises they are okay. “What if he needs you more? “What if he’s trying to come home, too, but no one will help?” she asks.

Michonne agrees to go north, to go find Rick.

Continued

In the woods, Michonne cuts off the arms and jaws of two walkers, uses them as pets to rep their walkers away, and starts her new journey the same way it started on the show: helping people in need, remembering when Carl asked Rick to help her at the prison. A couple of people have stumbled out of the woods. One is injured and they are desperate for help as their people are leaving without them.

Michonne offers them help. They head off to join a massive caravan of thousands of survivors in the distance.