S—t got real in Sunday’s penultimate episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Not only were we reunited with a long-running character from the mothership, but a veteran of three series in the franchise was dispatched in bittersweet fashion. Who was who? Read on…
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‘THEY PULLED A GUN ON US, THEY DON’T GET NOODLES’ | Early on in “Become,” everything was coming up roses for Rick and Michonne. They got to take a joy ride in Alexandria’s direction, canoodling every mile of the way; they scored a buttload of Ramen; and they overnighted at the cabin from The Guest Book. The couple’s situation only worsened, and even then just momentarily, when they stopped to help a dude named Red whose family was being attacked by walkers. When he repaid the favor by attempting to rob “Richonne,” they shrugged, turned the tables and obtained a promise that the desperate survivors would leave future good Samaritans be. And no, they could not keep the Ramen that Michonne had given them!
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Interspersed throughout the episode were flashbacks to annual meetings held in the woods by Jadis and ex-lover Gabriel. (Surprise!) Three years ago, she was haunted by the things that she’d done and would continue to do. In her estimation, the residents of Alexandria had been right to mistrust her. “My mistake wasn’t trusting you,” Gabriel countered. “It was losing my faith in you.” Two years ago, Gabriel asked if maybe Jadis’ hush-hush community could help a down-on-its-luck Alexandria. No dice, she said, making another of the decisions that she acknowledged were “difficult, even cruel.” Before they parted, Gabriel gave her the ring that he’d found after discussing with Rick the possibility of marrying him and Michonne. At their last get-together one year ago, it appeared that the ring had not, as Gabriel hoped that it would, restored Jadis’ faith. She apologized for turning him “into a loose end” and appeared ready to shoot him as a walker approached. She couldn’t, though. Down deep, she really was still Anne.
‘MORNING, LOVEBIRDS’ | Back in the present, Jadis caught up with Rick and Michonne and offered them cold comfort: Their dying that very day would safeguard Alexandria and set the stage for their children to live in a better world. Needless to say, it didn’t quite go down that way. “Richonne” escaped, a mad car chase ensued, and ultimately, Jadis used Red & Co. to help lure her nemeses into a trap set for them at a ranger station. Before you could say, “Karma!” Red’s family was bitten, and Rick and Michonne found themselves in a standoff with Jadis. Hatching a plot on the fly, Michonne suggested that she had seen the light. Rather than only continue to think of themselves, she’d go back to Alexandria, and Rick would go back to the CRM. Of course, Michonne didn’t mean a word of it. Shortly, Jadis realized that “you double-crossed me before I double-crossed you. It’s a good plan.”
Just then, curiously silent walkers made noise only as they revealed themselves and sank their teeth into Jadis’ neck. Beaten, she admitted to Rick and Michonne that her dossier on Alexandria was in her room at Cascadia. She only had one request: Don’t come for the CRM, let them rebuild the world. Alas, Michonne couldn’t grant that request. Rick would go back and get the Echelon Briefing from Beale, tell the city what the military is up two, and the two of them would take down the CRM. “I wish I’d died an artist,” Jadis sighed. And I wish an actress as compelling as Pollyanna McIntosh had been given a story arc with a better through-line. Before Rick put a bullet in Jadis’ head, she gave him the ring that Gabriel had intended to use to marry him and Michonne.
So, did you feel at all for Jadis in the end? Were you pleasantly surprised to see Gabriel? And how sweet were the professions of love that “Richonne” expressed?
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