‘The Walking Dead’ Mid-Season Finale Clip Reveals New Details About the Group’s Separation

A clip from Sunday’s The Walking Dead mid-season finale offers new hints surrounding the bad blood that went down during the unseen six-year time jump that ruptured the relationship between Alexandria and Hilltop.

Alexandria leader Michonne (Danai Gurira) and right-hand man Siddiq (Avi Nash) sit with an injured Rosita (Christian Serratos), who has been taken in by Hilltop following her discovery in the woods by Jesus (Tom Payne) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) after narrowly fleeing a relentless herd of walkers.

“I’m sorry we kept so much from you,” Siddiq tells Michonne, pointing to only recently informing her that Hilltop leader Maggie (Lauren Cohan) has since left the farming colony.

“You know that I’m on your side.”

It’s not that. “I knew people would still be angry, but it doesn’t make it any easier,” Michonne says.

“No,” Siddiq replies, “no, but it’s not too late to go mend some of those fences.”

“No, it’s not. But I won’t,” Michonne says, firm. “Not the way they want me to. I didn’t make the choices I made because I thought they’d be easy. At least they’re alive so they can hate me for it.”

A confused Rosita jolts awake. She asks the whereabouts of the hobbled Eugene (Josh McDermitt), who she was forced to stash in a barn.

Michonne tells her a search party comprised of Jesus, Aaron, Dog and Daryl (Norman Reedus) are already tracking Eugene.

“They’re already out there?” Rosita asks, concerned, hurriedly freeing herself from her hospital bed. “We have to help them. I know where he is.”

Siddiq tries and fails to calm her down. “Whatever’s going on,” he says, “they can handle it.”

“No, they can’t,” Rosita shoots back. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with.”

While the search party runs into trouble in the woods — an encounter promised by Payne to make Sunday’s winter finale the “creepiest episode of The Walking Dead you’ve ever seen” — new hints will arrive about the unfolding mystery concerning the trauma that forced a schism between the previously tight communities, which director Michael Cudlitz said is a “really f—ed up story.”

“It’s a big, really f—ed up thing that happened during that break,” Cudlitz told EW. “At some point, we will find out about it. You will find out eventually what that is. It was bad.”

Michonne has since become more closed off to strangers, as evidenced by her hostile treatment of the group of rescued newcomers led by a suspicious Magna (Nadia Hilkes). Michonne also expressed concern over running into Maggie before learning she was gone, telling Siddiq in 907, “I don’t know what she’ll do if she sees me.”

The hardened Alexandrian leader made decisions that contributed to the tensions between her community and Hilltop, but answers won’t come until the back half of the season in 2019.

“Alexandria, in particular, exists in this bubble, for reasons that we’ll learn later on in the season. Michonne has taken that isolation very much to heart, but Siddiq bends and mends those rules,” Nash told TV Insider.

“I think he realizes that if Michonne does go to Hilltop, despite her possibly being quite upset that Siddiq kept this information [of Maggie’s departure] from her, it will start the process of rebuilding the relationships between those communities and more importantly the relationships between those friends that have been apart for years. Maybe she’ll remember how much she loves these people.”

Nash added Siddiq has resisted and since accepted the isolationism enforced by Michonne, but “he’s not accepted it happily,” he said.

“He’s still carving out hope that he can change Michonne’s mind. While being isolated was important and allowed them to survive — what’s the cost?”

The Walking Dead premieres its last episode of 2018 Sunday at 9/8c on AMC.