The Walking Dead: Michonne’s New Group, Explained

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live episode 2.] It took years, but fans finally have answers about that mystery group that Michonne (Danai Gurira) joined in her final episode of The Walking Dead. After following Virgil to Bloodsworth Island in Maryland to retrieve weapons and munitions she needed to fight the Whisperer war, Michonne instead found Rick’s belongings in a shipwrecked boat. Michonne headed north and was somewhere between Virginia and New Jersey when she happened across Aiden (Breeda Wool) and Bailey (Andrew Bachelor): two stragglers trailing a massive caravan with hundreds of survivors on the move. “They won’t wait for us,” the woman said, so Michonne helped the two strangers.

Sunday’s “Gone” episode of The Ones Who Live revealed that the group is a mobile community led by Aiden’s sister, Elle (Erin Anderson), who strictly adheres to a no-stop protocol. “We’re a community. We live by the same rules,” Elle explained. “We don’t stop. Trying to save two, we could lose 200. This is how we’ve survived.” 

Michonne rejected Elle’s offer to join their community, telling her: “I don’t leave people behind.” Neither does tinkerer Nat (Matthew August Jeffers), who told Elle that they’re strong enough to save people. As thanks for saving his friends Aiden and Bailey, Nat equipped Michonne with weapons and zombie-proof armor to aid her on her quest to Bridgers Terminal in New Jersey. She would need it to get past The Wailing, what the group called a mass migration of walkers from the tri-state area: a five-mile-wide walker herd.

When Michonne’s path north was impeded by the herd at the Delaware border, she found that Aiden, Bailey, and Nat followed her with dozens of other survivors who splintered from Elle’s group. They accompanied Michonne on her mission to find Rick, but Michonne and Nat were the only survivors after a CRM helicopter bombed the group with lethalchlorine gas. The airstrike was a strategic one: Michonne’s group was unknowingly encroaching on the Civic Republic of Philadelphia, the “hidden city” that the Civic Republic Military keeps secret at all costs.

“She recognizes Nat and Bailey and Aiden as strong, smart people, but they have their own pragmatism, this group, which is, ‘If people fall out of this caravan, we cannot stop,’” showrunner Scott M. Gimple explained on AMC+’s TWD: The Ones Who Live Episode Insider. “But Michonne doesn’t leave people behind. And that is something that strikes a chord. A small group splinters off to join Michonne, and they’re attacked by this mysterious and brutal force that attacks them for seemingly no reason.” 

“The reason is that they were getting close to Philadelphia,” Gimple continued. “They weren’t knocking on the door of it, but if the CRM sees a caravan of people moving north in New Jersey, they’re just going to eliminate them. It’s that attack that builds a great deal of hatred in Michonne towards [the CRM].” 

The episode ended with Michonne as part of yet another group: as a CRM consignee on the outskirts of the C.R.P., where she’s plotting an escape with her husband, the long-lost Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.