The Walking Dead’s Michonne Crossed Over With World Beyond

Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) isn’t the first Walking Dead character to crossover with World Beyond. When Michonne’s (Danai Gurira) search for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) means going out into the world beyond The Walking Dead, she leaves the flagship series to rescue Rick from the clutches of the Civic Republic Military. In the final moments of Gurira’s exit episode in Season 10, “What We Become,” Michonne links up with a mass migration of thousands of organized survivors traveling north. The group’s identity is as mysterious as their destination — both questions that may have been answered on the series finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

In the final episodes of World Beyond Season 2, sisters Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Hope Bennett (Alexa Mansour) lead an insurgency against Jadis and the CRM: the Civic Republic’s authoritarian military plotting a chemical strike against the 87,000 survivors of Portland, Oregon. Under orders from Major General Beale, Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) carried out tactical military operations that wiped out Omaha (100,000 survivors) and the Campus Colony (10,000 survivors). 

The CRM’s goal: eliminate threats to the Civic Republic, the “hidden city” in a classified location now confirmed to be Philadelphia. Bound by the three-circle symbols that mark CRM helicopters, the civilizations were part of the Alliance of the Three: Omaha, Portland, and Philadelphia. 

Staff Sargeant Jennifer “Huck” Mallick (Annet Mahendru) heroically dies destroying the CRM’s cache of green liquid chlorine gas scheduled for an airlift to Portland, but the community is still in the military’s crosshairs as it threatens to drain the Civic Republic’s resources. Iris leaves to warn Portland with the people of The Perimeter, a colony of survivors led by Indira (Anna Khaja) in Ithaca, New York. 

Leading a large group with friends Elton (Nicolas Cantu) and Asha (Madelyn Kientz), Iris plans to return with reinforcements from Portland. Hope stays behind with Dr. Leo Bennett (Joe Holt) and a team of scientists to continue their reanimation research out of Cornell University in Ithaca.  

Iris’ group of reinforcements from Portland could be the caravan that Michonne joins when she’s last seen headed north in search of Rick. The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang confirmed we last saw Michonne “somewhere in between” Virginia and New Jersey, not far from the Civic Republic in Philadelphia or Cornell in Ithaca. 

“We see this group that’s organized, nomadic. It’s a neat, strong-looking group,” World Beyond co-creator and TWD Universe chief content officer Scott Gimple previously said of the travelers suspected to be Portland. “Something’s going on here.” 

If the caravan is Iris’ group from Portland returning to Ithaca, it would mean Michonne crossed over with World Beyond — before the spinoff even premiered. Gimple has confirmed Gurira’s Michonne will eventually return to the Walking Dead Universe. 

The Walking Dead Season 11 returns with new episodes in February. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter and ComicBook’s @NewsOfTheDead for TWD Universe coverage all season long.