‘The Walking Dead’ Season 10, Episode 13 ‘What We Become’ Recap: Michonne’s Trippy Farewell

Before we even jump into tonight’s recap, let me dispel your fears—Michonne (Danai Gurira) didn’t die in her final episode for The Walking Dead, titled “What We Become.” In what appears to be a very tense and trippy finale episode for Our katana-wielding warrior mama, Virgil (Kevin Carroll) doesn’t seem to be right in the head all this time. This is one of the few times that showrunner Angela Kang opted to follow the old Gimple way of having solo episodes. Only this time, it made sense and had a greater contribution to the entire narrative of Season 10. It’s a torrent of emotions as “What We Become” also served as a “What If?” episode—it cold opens with a callback to season 2, episode 13 (Beside the Dying Fire) when Andrea (Laurie Holden) was saved by Michonne. But instead of saving her, Michonne simply looks on and waits for Andrea to be devoured by the Walkers. What the fuck, right? There a lot of these sequences in the episode, so let’s get to it.

We begin with Virgil purposefully leading Michonne to his island in an effort to have her save his wife and kids. It would have been a simple operation, if not for Virgil tripping on some cans lying around and alerting the Walker-infested building of their presence. It’s a good thing Michonne is a pro at these stakeouts as she was able to put down the entire Walker herd. But the truth about Virgil eventually began to surface when they found the corpses of his people (including his wife) in the aftereffects of mass suicide. Something’s not right with the new guy. This fact is made even more apparent when he forced Michonne to hole up for the night and fulfill Virgil’s end of the bargain first thing in the morning. Since Michonne can’t just wait (she’s still unaware of the scorecard between her team versus the Whisperers), she decides to do the mission herself. Eventually, Virgil catches up to her trying to make out the voices in the building’s other room and shuts her inside. “Why couldn’t you just wait ’til the morning? I told you it wasn’t safe!” Virgil says. Yeah, no shit, man.

Gene Page/AMC

Michonne’s Mind-Altering Hallucinations

Michonne drifts in and out of consciousness until the voices in the other room tell her to calm down. Apparently, she’s been locked in the room for a day now. It turns out that these people were Virgil’s former research colleagues. They initially had a small community until the food ran out and one guy decided its best to kill one of them so they’d all turn. Virgil was too late when he found out about the mess. His wife and kids died in the onslaught too. That’s when Virgil finally snapped and resorts to doing hallucinogenic drugs. So everything that he told Michonne was true, except that it all happened a long time ago. As if on cue, Virgil reappears to give Michonne some food. But it’s not just a simple meal. This one is laced with drugs to make Michonne suffer from the worst trip of her life.

Gene Page/AMC

What follows is an amazing rehashed story of Michonne’s life in The Walking Dead:

• Michonne sees Siddiq (Avi Nash) who blames her for his death, eventually turning into a Walker to eat her up.
• We see that whole alternate reality opener with Andrea again.
• Remember the survivor that Daryl purposefully drove past in one of the earlier Walking Dead seasons? Michonne is that person now.
• There’s a new bit where Savior era Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) finds her fighting off Walkers in the woods and invites her to join the saviors.
• During Rick’s Savior outpost killing spree in Season 6, Episode 12, Michonne is seen as one of the Saviors inside. She kills Heath and Glenn and is the only Savior to have escaped the bloodbath.
• In the infamous Season 7 premiere lineup scene where Abraham and Glenn (who’s not a part of it since Michonne killed him) died, Negan gives Michonne the honor of doing the head-bashing herself.
• And wrapping up the “What If” sequence, Daryl shoots Michonne with an arrow and Rick kills her point-blank in the finale of the War with the Saviors.

Eliza Morse/AMC

A Brand New Colony?

With Michonne having enough of the drugs, she’s able to incapacitate Virgil and free his three colleagues. They all wanted to kill him, but Michonne’s mercy prevails (probably after all the shit she had to go through while tripping) and convinces the three to spare Virgil’s life. Michonne forces her hand in their bargain and has Virgil escorting her to a ship where the weapons cache is. But what Michonne discovers sends chills down her spine and a newfound hope—Rick’s boots and old iPhone is among the stuff in the storeroom. How it got there, we never know. Virgil doesn’t even know how most of the stuff got there in the first place. Funny thing though, how was Rick able to draw Judith’s face on his phone when she was only a baby when he left? Was he secretly watching over them? Unlikely, but that’s the only logical explanation here. Unless we have Jadis at play too. She’s been shown as a good artist before, so she must’ve been the one who drew those images on Rick’s phone. Whatever the case might be, Michonne’s final episode just set us up for an open-ended quest for our katana-wielding warrior mama—Rick is out there, and she’s got Judith’s blessing to go and find him. They’ve already defeated the Whisperers anyway (Judith’s clearly wrong, though). With that, Michonne embarks on another journey to find Rick.

The final moments of Michonne’s last episode are one of the coolest world-building sequences I’ve ever seen in The Walking Dead since Alexandria was introduced. As Michonne redons her old outfit and gets two Walker pets, she comes across two survivors (King Bach’s one of them holy shit) who are in a hurry to catch up to something below the valley. They ask for Michonne’s help in getting there. And what is that exactly? Well, it’s nothing but a massive gypsy-ish exodus of hundreds of people being escorted by men on horses.

AMC

‘The Walking Dead: What We Become’ Overall Verdict

See, Michonne didn’t have to die! But I’ve got to commend Angela Kang for masterfully weaving in past stories into something that gives us a new look at what could’ve been had Michonne join the other side. The VFX team surely did a great job of putting Michonne in key scenes that totally altered our perspectives along with Michonne’s trippy hallucinations. I’ve since been allergic to solo episodes in The Walking Dead, but not this one. It’s set up to perfectly give Gurira a graceful exit without completely closing the book of her story in the show. And the way things are teased, it looks like we haven’t seen the last of Michonne just yet. Who knows, the Rick movies might show us what she’s been up to after joining that new group.

The Walking Dead continues Sunday, March 29, with “Look at the Flowers” at 9/8c on AMC.