‘The Walking Dead’ Season 9, Episode 14 Review: ‘Scars’ Is A …

Sunday night's episode of The Walking Dead was one of the most harrowing, brutal episodes the show has ever delivered, and it answers some big questions about what happened to Michonne and Daryl during the time jump.

Spoilers through Season 9 of 'The Walking Dead' follow.

The brutal secret behind Michonne and Daryl's mysterious scars is revealed in Sunday night's episode of 'The Walking Dead'. 2018 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Now that was an amazing episode of The Walking Dead. Filled with betrayal, terror, torture and the kind of gripping excitement that keeps you on the edge of your seat, I didn't think we'd ever see an episode like this again from AMC's zombie drama. Thank goodness, I was wrong.

'Scars' tells two stories. One set in the modern day, one in the past not long after the death/disappearance of Rick Grimes. In both stories, Michonne loses Judith, albeit briefly. But she learns different lessons from each.

In the modern day story, Daryl and his group (Connie, Henry and Lydia) arrive at Alexandria looking for some help. They don't intend to stay, knowing Michonne's reluctance to let in strangersLydia, in this case. She even tells Lydia, in so many words, that she should leave on her own to let everyone else off the hook.

Daryl and his group only stay long enough to get Henry patched up and then off they go again, on their own. (No, Daryl is not being set up to "leave the show" as some clickbait fake journalism nonsense would have you believe.)

Judith isn't happy about this. She's mad at her mom for making them leave. She doesn't understand why, and so she sneaks off and follows them to help them because they're her friends. She loves Daryl and can't bear to see him turned away.

Michonne goes looking for her and turns to Negan for help. He tells her that the reason Judith likes talking to him is because he's straight with her. He tells her the truth. Michonne scoffs at this and asks if he told her what he did to Glenn and Abraham. Turns out, he's told her everything and that honesty and openness has brought them closer, while Michonne's refusal to tell her what happened has had the opposite effect.

So what did happen?

Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) 2018 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The second story is a flashback, taking us back to the days not long after Rick disappeared, back when Michonne and Daryl were still regularly trying to find some trace of him. This is before Michonne became the hardened, bitter woman we know her as now. I've been at my wit's end with her character for the past six or seven episodes because she's so different than she used to be. She's shut everyone out and taken a completely isolationist stance around Alexandria.

Well, it turns out she has a pretty good reason, after all. A small group shows up at Alexandria in need of help. One of the survivors is Jocelyn, a woman Michonne knew back in the days before the end of the world. They haven't seen one another in fifteen years, and so naturally Michonne takes them in and helps treat Jocelyn's wounds.

There are others in their group who need help, however, and so Michonne and some of the others go find them. It turns out that other than one young man, the entire group consists of children of various ages. That's . . . odd, to say the least, and might even be a red flag if Michonne and Jocelyn weren't old friends.

And everyone seems happy to be there. The kids all play with the Alexandrian children. Michonne and Jocelyn talk about the past and Michonne opens up about Rick and her quest to find him, or learn the truth of what happened to him. Michonne is very pregnant at this point, and having an old friend comes as a huge relief.

The newcomers stay for a while. Earn the trust of the Alexandrians. Several parents start letting their kids spend the night with Jocelyn's crew, including Michonne. So when they go to find their kids one morning and nobody is there, the worry sets in quickly. Michonne starts yelling for Judith, and then they discover that the larder has been emptied and its guard killed. Bloody footprints lead to the sewer.

Jocelyn and her group are nowhere to be found, and Judith and several other kids are gone with them. We realize pretty quickly how Jocelyn actually came about having all these kids. She's been stealing them, like some crazy Pied Piper, taking them from their real families and then training them to be her little soldiers.

Before we get to exactly what happened with the scars I want to point out two small complaints I have for an otherwise excellent episode:

Michonne (Danai Gurira) 2018 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Okay, now that those complaints are out of the way (and seriously, it wouldn't have killed the writers of this episode to cover these bases a little better!) let's get on to the good stuff.

When Michonne and Daryl track down Jocelyn's group, they aren't expecting what they'll find at all. Neither are we. Michonne finds them first, and suddenly she's facing a group of heavily armed kids. They have knives and bows. When Daryl rounds the corner, one of them shoots him with an arrow. Michonne puts down her sword, and one of the kids bashes her over the head, knocking her out.

When they come to, they find themselves bound, their arms over their heads. Jocelyn, looking super creepy, instructs a boy and a girl to take fiery hot brands and burn them into both Daryl and Michonne's backs. Hence the scars. Later, when they escape, the kids repeat some weird thing Jocelyn has taught them about marking their targets then killing their targets. So I guess this is all part of some twisted ritual.

Speaking of escape, this is my final complaint about the episode. In some very peculiar editing, we see Daryl take out his guard and free Michonne, but the scene starts with Daryl already in the middle of this process and it's very confusing. I really don't understand how that made it into the final cut. And then they split up, because in TV shows it's always a good idea to split up in these dangerous situations, when we all know in real life we would never do that. Oh well.

In any case, this is where things get . . . crazy. They escape and go looking for Judith and the other Alexandria kids. Once again, they're waylaid by Jocelyn and her brainwashed kids. Jocelyn sends two of them after Michonne while her and the rest make good their escape.

What follows is madness.

Daryl searching for Judith. 2018 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Michonne is forced to fight children. The children won't back down. She keeps pleading with them to stop, but they don't. When she gets out of the building, Jocelyn hits her with a piece of wood, knocking her to the ground. She goes in for the kill, but Michonne gets her sword and takes Jocelyn out at the leg, then without any messing around drives that sucker right through the evil woman's heart.

It's at this point you think the kids will all run away. But no, they don't. They're that far gone. The young man tells one of the girls to kill the Alexandria children, then he and the others attack Michonne. One slices her belly. She's weeping as she fights them. The camera cleverly cuts to the modern day storyline, where Michonne is lopping her way through a herd of zombies to find Judith, sparing the audience from the brutality of the scene.

When it's over, only the one girl is left standing. Michonne just had to kill all these kids. No wonder she's gone cold. She pleads with the girl not to kill Judith and the others, and finally the girl relents and runs off. Judith is safe, but Michonne is broken. She's already been through so much, and now to be betrayed by a friend and forced to kill kids . . . dear god, it's so much worse than anything I had imagined leading up to this episode.

In the modern day storyline she finally tells Judith what happened, assuming she had forgotten or blocked out the memory. But Judith remembered. They have a great talk. Judith says that if we're supposed to protect the ones we love, then when did we stop loving Daryl or Carol or all their other friends?

And Michonne finally breaks again, shedding that armor she built up to keep everyone safe, letting go. Realizing that Judith is right, that they can't just protect Alexandria, they need to protect everyone they love.

Just in time for the Whisperers.

Michonne getting ready to kill. 2018 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Verdict

I do see why they did all of this the way they did, making us wonder what happened and building this mystery, but I still disagree with it. Or, at the very least, I disagree with how they withheld this information for so long. This should have been the midseason premiere. Obviously, some details would have to be reworked, but imagine if episode 9 had opened with this crazy episode. I suspect ratings would have been much higher going into 9B.

Last week's episode and this one have both been much better than the three that came before, and it's really a shame they couldn't craft the second half of the season to flow better. If I had a chance to go in and fiddle with stuff, here's what I would have done differently:

That's a rough sketch, obviously, but I feel like they're giving away some mysteries too quickly and letting others drag on too long. We need balance! This show is so completely uneven it's just crazy. The good episodes have been so good, but the filler is just too much.

What did you think? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter, and thanks for reading!

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Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero
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