The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5 Recap: “Become”

A hooded figure walks through the woods with a machete. As a helicopter flies overhead, he looks to the heavens: it’s Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam). The collared priest stabs the walker and, his eyes turned to the skies, says a prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven…”

Tony Bennett’s “The Good Life” plays as Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) head home. In a montage, the honeymooners find a van stocked with boxes of playfully-named “Tasteful Noods” ramen and set up camp in small town, Wyoming, scavenging their way across the Cowboy State. At a rest stop off Three Pines Trail, Rick and Michonne scope out a roadside store. She scoffs at a spinning rack stocked with souvenir license plates. There are no “Michonnes,” but there is a “Junior,” which Rick considers bringing home to their son, RJ. No one’s ever called Rick Jr. “Junior,” so bringing himself back is more than enough. While Michonne pokes around the store, Rick palms a “Michelle” necklace, snaps off every letter except the “M,” and pockets the gift.

Rick has another gift: the baking soda and spearmint toothpaste he promised to find her nearly a decade earlier. “It only took a couple of lifetimes,” she says with a chuckle. “I was in love with my son’s best friend,” Rick confesses. “I didn’t know what to do. Then you asked for that toothpaste.” They embrace. The couple’s luck holds up as they find keys to Three Pines Cabin, a woodside getaway where they can hunker down for the night.

“You know, I never let go. I denied it, and I pushed you away, but I never let go,” Rick assures Michonne. She takes his face in her hands. “I didn’t know,” she says. Their attention turns toward a sign that Michonne admires: “The people from the people.” It’s part of a larger U.S. National Park Service Ranger Station sign with the words, “Protect the park from the people, the people from the park, and the people from the people.”

They hear screams, so Rick and Michonne rescue a trio of unkempt campers from walkers with stone-like skin. They work in tandem, with Rick using his prosthetic fist to punch cracks into the walker’s reinforced head that Michonne then stabs with the rebar she’s using in lieu of her sword. The strangers explain that the area’s zombies get crusty from Yellowstone’s steam vents and become calcified; others are muddy wet. “You got your baked and you’re boiled,” explains Dalton (Will Brill), who seems harmless enough. They look hungry, Michonne notes, so Rick hands over bags of ramen noodles from their backpack stuffed with Tasteful Noods. Tina (Han Van Sciver) happily thanks the two strangers for their generosity, but Red (Ben Dickey) draws his red gun to rob Rick and Michonne. Tina tries to talk him down, but he’s too desperate to not take advantage of the kindness of strangers.

Rick and Michonne – calm, confident, collected – give Red the chance to roll it back and walk away with a “thank you,” but he keeps them at gunpoint. They swiftly disarm Red and Dalton, turning the tables (and their guns) on the would-be bandits. They want a promise that Red’s gang will let people be, a fair trade for letting them live.”Why would you care about saving anybody’s skin other than your own? You look after you,” Red replies, genuinely confounded by their altruism. Rick’s swagger with gun in hand gives Dalton a one-way ticket to pee-pee pants city: he pisses himself in fear.

“We saved you, and the only people in danger of being killed – it isn’t the helpers here,” Rick says. Michonne, backing him up, wants Red to give her a reason not to pull the trigger. “Why don’t you just promise, and we’ll believe you?” He promises to let people be, so Rick and Michonne leave them be. But not before snatching back their bags of noodles. No Tasteful Noods for bad dudes. They unload the gun and toss it into the woods with a warning to wait until they leave. Later, at the cabin, Michonne mulls over leaving them a gun. Rick, confident in his doubts that they’ll come after them, then asks about what she said: “The people from the people.”

The phrase is stuck in Michonne’s head. “Protect the people from the people.” Over a bottle of dusted-off whisky, Rick and Michonne talk about helping that family without thought or hesitation. It felt good, Rick admits. “Us against the world,” Michonne smiles. Clinking their glasses in a toast, Rick adds, “Or saving it.” As the couple enjoys their romantic getaway, a stalking black-clad figure disables their fishing line trip wire outside the cabin.

THREE YEARS AGO. A praying Father Gabriel fills his canteen from a brook when he looks up to see Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) – the woman he knew as Anne. Gabriel embraces her with a hug and a question: “Is this coming back?” She just wanted to see her once-boyfriend, but with a caveat that he can’t tell anyone she was here. Gabriel tells her he was using Eugene’s ham radio with Rosita’s help trying to find Anne after she disappeared, only for her to find him. “You left because you were being judged for things in your past, instead of who you were trying to be.” But she was up to something, and he trusted her – and that was a mistake, she confesses. He reminds her that Rick brought her into Alexandria because he believed people could change. Gabriel then informs Anne that Rick died trying to bring people together, so she pretends as if she’s learning Rick’s fate for the first time. Rick was caught in the explosion of the bridge he destroyed to stop an incoming herd, Gabriel explains, adding that his mistake wasn’t trusting Anne. “It was losing my faith in you.” When he asks for her forgiveness, she responds with what seems like sincere remorse: “What about all the people who can’t forgive you?” she asks. “What about the ones you made gone? How do you live with that?”

“Prayer. Amends. Talk,” the priest answers. But Anne can’t talk about the things she’s done. She’s keeping Gabriel and Alexandria a secret from her people, so he assures her she has “clergy confidentiality.” He’ll keep their meetings secret.

In the present, Jadis stirs a sleeping Rick and Michonne awake at gunpoint – with Red’s red gun – and orders the couple to tie themselves to the bed. A begrudging Michonne and Rick comply, all the while openly discussing their next move. They suspect she’s alone, and she’s acting on her own behalf – not the CRM’s. Jadis explains that she was suspicious of their disappearance, so she was with a CRM reclamation team when she investigated their helicopter wreck. Rather than pull any soldiers from the CRM Summit, she flew herself to the nearest jump point, supplied up, and borrowed an emergency vehicle to return to the crash site, but it had become rubble by the time she returned. Rick and Michonne’s road trip through the mountains left bread crumbs – dead walkers and ramen wrappers down Highway 90, the most direct route to Virginia.

That confirms to Rick and Michonne that the CRM doesn’t know Jadis has found them, and her mistake was not killing them in their sleep. Jadis monologues about someone else she killed – a confidante who was “monumental” in her development as CRM Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes – but there were things left unsaid. It’s not a mistake she’ll make a second time. Jadis insists she’s a true believer in the Civic Republic. She’s not Anne anymore. “You think I’m still her. I’m not. I’m not that woman from the heaps, either,” she says. “‘We take, we don’t bother.’ Didn’t work. I am decorated Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes of the Civic Republic Military, defender of the Republic.” She’s not selfishly taking anymore – everything she does, everything she’s done, has been for the Republic.

If Jadis were to let Rick and Michonne escape and make it home, and then another enterprising warrant officer were to find them, her connection to Alexandria would be discovered… and her important work with the CRM would end. She cannot allow that to happen.

“I saved your life,” Jadis reminds Rick. To that, Michonne fires back: “You took it! You took it from him, you took it from me, you took it from our children. All those years they grew up with their father. All those years I didn’t know if he was alive or dead.” Rick tells Anne what she really did when she saved him: “You stole our family.” Jadis tells them she didn’t kill them because she wanted to thank them. By dying here, in secret, Alexandria will remain safe, and the Grimes children will inherit a better world. “You could have made other choices, but you didn’t lose here,” she says. “You won a different way. It’s the end of your story. Let that be your peace.”

Jadis opens fire, sending Rick and Michonne scurrying for cover. Rick ducks beneath the bed and overturns the bullet-riddled mattress onto Jadis, disarming her long enough for a hand-tied Michonne to grab a small axe she then plunges into Jadis’ side. Michonne opens fire on a fleeing Jadis, but Rick smacks the gun away. They have to go.

TWO YEARS AGO. Anne, in another secret meeting with Gabriel, asks about Rick’s wife. Gabriel tells her that Michonne is away helping people and asks why she called Michonne Rick’s “wife.” She wasn’t “officially,” he explains, as if that matters anymore. He recalls how, one day, Rick told Gabriel that he should marry them. That maybe Rick and Michonne should be wed on the bridge that they were building to unite the communities. Gabriel couldn’t see the future that Rick envisioned until, as if by fate, Gabriel happened across a ring he found in the forest. Gabriel kept the ring and thought to put it somewhere that Rick would find it, because he could suddenly see that “someday.” But then the bridge happened… and that future, he thought, died with Rick. Anne tells Gabriel she spent the past year anticipating their annual visit. Sitting there in the woods, talking with Gabriel, almost makes her feel like how it was – like who she was. “The other 364 days back there, it’s less about personal connection and more about responsibility,” she says, “to something greater than myself. Even if that means I have to do things that are difficult. Even cruel.” Gabriel says that her doubts suggests that’s a sign that isn’t who she is. “It’s about survival. It’s about what comes after. Survival of others,” she explains. “And that part of me that I’ve harnessed, it has kept me alive, and maybe it can keep the rest of the world alive, too.” Gabriel tells her that the Whisperers compromised Alexandria’s walls, and their community is starving. He asks if she and her people could help, but she shuts him down. “Please know that my remorse is real,” she says. A disappointed Gabriel laments that she expresses remorse as she does “cruel and difficult things.” She goes to leave, so Gabriel puts the ring in her hand. It’s a “symbol of faith, of love,” he says. “Maybe it will give you something you need. Giving it to you is giving me something that I need.” She asks if they’ll still meet at the same time, at the same place, at the same time, one year from now. “If I’m alive,” Gabriel says.

In Wyoming, a half-dead Jadis drives her vehicle through the woods as Rick and Michonne’s yellow truck gives chase. Rick reminds Michonne that they can’t kill Jadis because she left a file about Alexandria for the CRM to find. It’s BECAUSE she’ll destroy Alexandria, Michonne argues, that Jadis has to die. She destroys. She robbed them of Rick being there when his son was born… she can’t take anymore. When Rick asks what they do after she’s dead, Michonne answers, “Whatever we have to do.” Michonne rams Jadis’ car into a drop-off, sending her careening into a walker-filled ditch. Michonne goes in for the kill, only to find the car abandoned, so she asks Rick to point out the CRM jump point near by.

Meanwhile, a bloodied Jadis stumbles across Red, Dalton, and Tina, and feigns that she’s a hapless stranger in need of help. If they can help get her to the jump point a few miles away, she says, she can bring them back to her community that has walls and food. She looks at Tina, and notes that she’s tall. Elsewhere, Rick tells Michonne that the CRM has bases across the country from each other. They need to know where Jadis stashed the dossier with intel on Alexandria, which means they need to take her alive. Rick notes that she hates being called “Anne,” so he thinks Anne is still inside Jadis somewhere. “We’ll keep it safe,” Michonne says of their home, “but she’s gonna die.” Rick counters that they need to keep home safe without risking anything. Maybe they can help her see things the way Michonne helped Rick see things. If they can’t, Michonne finishes the thought – “Then I can kill her.” They follow Jadis’ bloody trail to a geyser visitor center and corner a shambling, hooded Jadis… who is actually Tina, strong-armed into posing as Jadis’ double. She’s sorry, but Jadis promised them shelter if they lured Rick and Michonne into her trap. With Red, Dalton, and Tina, that’s Jadis’ four to their two. “People are a resource,” Jadis reminds Rick, who tries to talk the trio out of working with Jadis. There’s still time to roll it back… until there’s not.

Rick and Michonne make short work of Red and Dalton, but in the chaos, Tina is swarmed and devoured by walkers. Jadis shoots as Rick and Michonne make a run for it. Red, Dalton, and Tina don’t make it.

ONE YEAR AGO. Anne is surprised Gabriel showed up for their annual talk after denying Alexandria assistance. He doesn’t understand her community or her commitment to them, but he knows something about the part of herself she’s scared of losing. She fears it may already be gone. Even year she returns, she’s done worse things. “I know why they’re done. I believe in what we’re trying to do. But there’s the Plan and the ‘why.’ And then there’s the blood,” she says. It’s her confessional, but she can’t tell the priest everything. It’s Gabriel’s turn to confide in Anne. He looks forward to their one-day-a-year meetings. “I look forward to these days, to have this, to have you to myself. This secret, these days,” he confesses. “I have you, and that proves that you’re still here, Anne.” She kisses him. He asks her to come with him back to Alexandria and assures her that her community can remain a secret, but she can’t – and won’t – leave them. All he knows about her group is that they horde supplies while others starve. “You think that the purpose of what we do is to make people suffer?” she asks, indignant. “That I’d be part of a group like that? Is that what you think of me?” He knows she’s not them. But she is. “I did this,” she says. “This was me.” She apologizes for coming back and making herself vulnerable… and for turning Gabriel into a loose end. She then turns her gun on Gabriel.

In the present, Rick and Michonne are in a standoff with Jadis. “I live for the cause, and I will die for the cause,” she tells Rick. “I’m not a traitor. Not like you.” As Rick pokes his head around a corner, Jadis fires a bullet that grazes Rick’s forehead. With Michonne taking point, Jadis reminds the couple, “You two together – you are unstoppable. But that won’t save your kids. You kill me, they’re dead. I die from my wounds, they’re dead. I get killed by walkers, they’re dead.” Jadis steps out into the line of fire, right into the path of walkers, daring Michonne to shoot her dead or let the dead have her flesh. Before a walker can sink its teeth into Jadis’ neck, Michonne guns down the walkers and takes cover as Jadis returns fire. She calls out to former Sgt. Maj. Grimes, telling him that Major General Beale was going to give Rick the Echelon Briefing upon his return from the CRM’s Cascades base. “Your eyes would have been opened to the true size and scope of what the CRM is gonna do to bring this world back,” she says, scolding Rick for letting Michonne pull him away from the last light of the world. And now the fates of their family and friends are sealed.

Rick tells Jadis he doesn’t believe she wants to kill everyone back home. But it’s not about “want,” she replies. “It’s about keeping your humanity or saving humanity, and it is a choice. I’ve chosen my community. I’ve chosen my life. So, who’s gonna die today? The two of you? Or me and everyone back home?” Michonne makes a show of surrendering – “Rick, there has to be a sacrifice. Since I found you, all that I’ve done has been for us. But now I see this can’t end with us going home.” Michonne tells Jadis there’s a deal to be made so they can all live – and Alexandria. Michonne will get her to the jump point, and Rick will go back with Jadis on one condition: they’ll say Rick was injured in the helicopter crash, the lone survivor, and he’ll go back to working toward the CRM’s future if Michonne gets away and Jadis keeps Alexandria secret. Jadis agrees to the deal, so Michonne surrenders her weapon and leaves. Rick and Jadis show themselves. “I was a fool to think I could take you down with you two together, which is why I agreed to your deal,” Jadis tells Rick, red gun in hand. “I don’t trust you, either, but I respect you, Rick.”

One year earlier, Anne has her gun on Gabriel. He tells her she’s lying to herself. “You don’t keep coming back here,” he says. “You never left.” Anne tells him she’s wrong, but hesitates to pull the trigger. “Make me understand,” Gabriel tells Anne. “Show me who you are.”

In the present, Jadis has her gun to Rick… and Michonne shows herself, gun to Jadis’ head. Rick and Michonne double-crossed her before she could double-cross them. Michonne threatens to kill Jadis to save Rick, but before she can, a zombified Tina attacks Jadis and bites her throat. Rick and Michonne take out the undead Dalton and Tina, but it’s too late: Jadis suffered a walker’s bite to her neck that she won’t survive.

“Everything I’ve ever had or lost. My people, my friends, everyone,” she says over memories of Anne and Gabriel, of Jadis and the Scavengers, of Jadis killing Jennifer “Huck” Mallick. “I was tired of losing. I was finally part of something that could last. And I couldn’t lose another community. My old one. And my new one. I knew if I didn’t kill you all, somehow, some way, you’d come for the CRM. So I drew up the dossier to protect myself and make sure you couldn’t. I thought, in my death, it was worth it. I’d chosen a side, right? I thought I had. Back and forth. Jadis, Anne, Alexandrians, CRM.”

One year ago, Anne refuses to shoot Gabriel. “You came to me to help you find an answer. You just found it,” Gabriel tells her. “I’ll see you next year, Anne.” A dying Jadis/Anne tells Rick and Michonne that Gabriel helped her find her answer. She tells them that the dossier is in her room at the Cascadia Base. “Just destroy it and go home.” But another caveat: The CRM will bring the world back, so her dying wish is that Rick and Michonne don’t go after them. “No,” Michonne says. “Because we are coming for them. We’re going to get the dossier… and then the CRM, we’re gonna stop them.” Michonne tells Jadis that Rick will get the Echelon Briefing and find out everything the CRM does that the Civic Republic doesn’t know about, and they’re going to help the city stop them. “Because, Anne,” Michonne says, sympathetically, the CRM is not the answer, and they must end. We’re gonna do that.” When Rick tells Anne that she kept them alive for a reason, she shares her only regret: “I wish I’d died an artist. It was never about survival in that life. It was just about truth. And this is mine. The end of my story. My peace.” Anne removes the ring necklace that Gabriel gifted her and hands it over to Rick.

“On the bridge, you told Gabriel you wanted to marry her. He found this, and he wanted to give it to you,” she says, shocking Rick. “You weren’t dreaming, Rick. Go ahead. Do what you said you would do. Please.” Rick pockets the ring and then mercifully shoots Anne in the head.

Rick and Michonne make their way to the helicopter jump point. He tells her that what Michonne said before, it wasn’t just for Jadis. “You couldn’t have changed them by yourself, Rick,” Michonne replies. “But together? The whole damn world – I see how he could make it better, and if we can, Rick, we have to.” But the world can wait. Rick, ring in hand, tells the love of his life: “It’s a broken world, Michonne, and you’re the only thing that puts it back together. ‘Til my last breath, I am yours.” Rick gets to his knees to propose. Michonne, overcome with emotion, tells him she never could have imagined this.
But it could only ever have been you,” she says with a tearful smile. “I’m yours.” Rick and Michonne, husband and wife, embrace with a kiss.

Elsewhere, Father Gabriel dutifully waits for Anne on the one-year anniversary of their last meeting. As time passes, he knows it was their last. In Wyoming, an “A” marker sits atop a humble grave built from rocks. In the distance, the chuffing of a CRM helicopter as it flies overhead. The end of Anne’s story.

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.