Danai Gurira’s seven seasons on The Walking Dead came to an end with last night’s episode, but she’s far from done playing the sword-wielding Michonne. We always knew that Michonne would be back, but her exit also teased the return of Andrew Lincoln as her former lover, Rick Grimes.
In last night’s episode titled “What We Become”, Michonne made a seafaring escape from the zombie apocalypse, to find her lost love, Rick. But it all began with the misguided Virgil (Kevin Carroll), who had kidnapped and drugged Michonne in an effort to help her. Which he did, incidentally, by leading her to a boat containing Rick’s familiar cowboy boots along with sketches of Michonne and what appears to be daughter Judith Grimes. So Michonne does the only thing she can do, which is to go off in search of Rick, who vanished a decade earlier.
When it was first revealed that Lincoln would leave the show after season 9, we knew it wasn’t meant to be forever. A trilogy of films centered on Rick Grimes is in the works, and this episode appears to be setting up a Rick/Michonne reunion there, or perhaps in a new series all to themselves?
Gurira wouldn’t confirm anything in her interview with Deadline, but did say this about Michonne’s departure and what it means…
“I thought it was beautiful that she got to, you know, kind of get cosmically rewarded for helping this weird guy, Virgil, who is played by a wonderful actor who I’ve always admired, Kevin Carroll. Rewarded by finding evidence that’s something she’s always suspected was true, which was that Rick didn’t die on that bridge. We’ll see what happens next or see if something happens.”
