Michonne arrives a the Naval Base and discovers the truth about Gabriel and absolutely the last thing she expected to find.

The Walking Dead has always excelled at titles and this week’s is particularly appropriate. The episode combines that title, and the question implicit within it, with a very simple, very clever visual bookmark. The episode opens with the moment Michonne was first introduced, watching one of the cast fight and almost die as she walks through the forest with her ‘neutered’ zombies. In the show we know, she runs to help.

In this episode, she turns to leave.

That single choice, much like the classic Doctor Who episode Turn Left’s moment at the literal and metaphorical crossroads, leads to a fascinating new reality for her. We see a casual moment of accidental cruelty from Daryl, his own ‘turn left’ that drives her down a path to Negan. We see her at the slaughter at the transmitter, murdering Glen. We see her at the confrontation where Glen and Abe were killed, only this time she’s swinging the bat. Finally we see her run, fight and die, killed at Daryl’s hands.

Michonne’s other life is brutal and short. The episode’s question, as we see her experience it, becomes far longer; is what she is now what she wanted to become? Was the other road a better choice?

The answer is likewise, subtle. Better? No. Easier? In so many ways. The Walking Dead has continually been criticised, often rightfully in the past, for cruelty porn. It’s a show that loves suffering but if you watch it in full, it’s clearly a show that loves suffering as one half of an equation. Almost nothing else is as kind as The Walking Dead and that’s doubly true here. Gabriel, who is as others have pointed out, the latest in the long parade of lone tragic madmen the show has inflicted on us, fully expects to be killed by her. He’s at the end of the road we see Michonne not go down; broken down, cruel, manipulative, ruthless, too scared to end his life but too frightened to live. That’s why she lets him live and that’s why this episode centres so totally on the war between brutality and compassion. There’s a kindness in ending Gabriel’s life. There’s a brutality in mercy. The ethical and cultural framework of the world shifts constantly under the feet of every character and Michonne is one of the few who can stay standing, exhausted as she may be.

Sound familiar?

Michonne stands. It hurts. She hates it. She’s tormented, as we see here, by the loss of Siddiq, of Abe, of Glenn and, of course, Rick. But the other thing we see here changes everything. In an episode crammed full of typically great work from her, the moment Danai Gurira just comes apart when she sees Rick’s boots wrecked me. It’s such a real, human response. The upwelling of total joy, so clearly tinged by horror he may be dead anyway and desperation to find the truth, however bad it may be. The show’s cast are all strong, and the return of Lauren Cohan next season will definitely help, but Gurira was the best they still had and this episode shows it.

It also shows just how nimble and ambitious this ten year old show is. This is a character study, a flashback episode, a bottle episode and a bravura piece of showmanship all rolled into one. Of course Michonne’s going to go off and appear in one of the Rick movies. Of course that feral army she saw at the end are going to be vitally important. Of course this show has a plan. In fact, it has more of a plan, and a heart, than it’s ever had before. Or to go for the really obvious joke:

The Walking Dead has rarely felt this alive. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart