The Walking Dead Season 9, Episode 14 “Scars” Review

The last time I could say “that was extremely dark” on a video game was when I heard the torture cassette tapes of Paz on Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Around that same time, We got one of the darkest episodes to have ever premiered on The Walking Dead and that was “The Grove”. I questioned if an episode could get to that level again and that was the season 7 premiere (Still one of my favorite episodes of all time). But now, I think that the newest episode just surpassed that in tone, theme, setting, and storytelling. Here is my review of “scars”.

This episodes jumps back and forth with the current time, and to a few years ago while Michonne was pregnant with Rick Grime’s baby. I will break down the flashbacks first. A woman who was close friends with Michonne from before the apocalypse was injured during an attack and she had a group of children that she has adopted. She showed up at Alexandria and can I say that pregnant Michonne is still a badass? She told her story to Michonne wanted to take them all in to live at Alexandria.

I could not blame her at all since Rick is gone, she has pretty much nobody. We also did get a good monologue with a scene of Michonne finding Rick’s gun from where the bridge exploded as well in the beginning of the episode in one of the flashbacks. Going back to the flashbacks, It turns out Jocelyn trained those kids to fight and murder people. Jocelyn eventually turns on Michonne and gathers all of the children (including younger Judith) and steals everything from the infirmary. When Michonne and Daryl finds this out, they both go after her but they are both captured. One of the kids proceeds to brand the “X” marks on their backs and she even brainwashed the kids to go after anyone with that mark (which is what I believe happened to the adults that used to be with her). You can see the pain in Michonne’s eyes and hear her scream loud while she was branded since she was also pregnant. Daryl gets loose without her noticing and frees Michonne before anything worse could happen and they begin searching for Judith. After Michonne kills Jocelyn after Jocelyn tried to kill her (including when her pregnant stomach was slashed), Michonne had no other choice but to kill most of the other children to save Judith so that way they can go.

In the present day, Judith and Daryl talk about the stories that the group went through to defeat Negan and The Saviors and Judith believe that they can do the same thing to The Whisperers. Judith also wants Daryl to stay at Alexandria again, but he refuses. Siddiq patches up Henry’s leg when they arrived there and after that, Daryl, Connie, Lydia and Henry leaves. I would also like to point out that Michonne still does not trust Lydia.

Elsewhere, Judith goes off somewhere to find Daryl after they leave and Michonne even asks Negan if he had seeen her and Negan told her not since yesterday. They also got into a small heated argument and Negan had to remind her that she is a mom and Judith was not someone that would take things lightly just like her. While they were clearing walkers, Michonne finds Judith in the woods and saves her from approaching walkers. They also have a heart to heart after the encounter as they talked about what she remembers and how much they love eachother. Michonne also talked to her about making a promise to never bury any bodies at the spot they were standing at and gives the reason to why they never accept new members into Alexandria. Michonne wants to protect everyone that is there as her and Judith held hands as they walked away from Carl’s grave. Michonne eventually caught up with Daryl and the rest as they head to The Kingdom since the fair is under way. The last scene of the episode shows us that The Whisperers has found The Kingdom.

This episode I have a feeling will spark controversy in a bad way, but it is what The Walking Dead needed in a very long time. A dark and gritty episode that will put shivers to our spine. Now we have a reason to those “X” marks, but it also leaves us with more questions. What caused the rift between Michonne and Maggie? My theory is that Maggie found out that she murdered kids but could not do it to Negan. But her anger has been justified since it has been building up since episode 6. Seeing Michonne branded while she was pregnant made me almost close my eyes because that scene was sickening but not as sickening of her killing the kids that attacked her. I also think that brainwashing kids to kill people that are branded is compared to training combat dogs but I will not go further than that. As of the episode itself, It is one where you would not watch with your kids at all and It is a good episode you have to watch if you are curious to know why Michonne is the way that she is.

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Julian Cannon

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