9.14: The Walking Dead - Scars

[Judderman]

Quite an interesting episode. Was it really necessary to have yet another enemy using "Be strong" as their mantra. EXACTLY THE SAME as Alpha of the Whisperers, and the Dirty woman! Come on writers. The violent kids were scary in their bloodlust. I wonder if we will see the survivor again.

Not showing how Daryl and Michonne escaped was ridiculous. Presumably it is a deleted scene.

We always have to question why these back stories are put in between episodes of main stories, but at least it put some explanation as to why Michonne joins the fair. Though didn't seem to be with a lot of support considering the Whisperers.

This still doesn't explain about Michonne and Maggie disagreement. Only that Michonne doesn't want to help Hilltop? If so, then clearly Michonne didn't explain her fear about Judith well.

 

[grip junky]

I did not take it as you being nosy at all. Your question and my reread of the post gave me the feeling I was putting my self out there in some kind of stolen valor way. I would never want that.

 

[ctg]

I was more shocked by Michonne chopping off heads than limbs, although to achieve those accurate strikes in her state, might have been more difficult to achieve than following the sword naturally. The kids were driven to hurt her and it was as if they had no humanity, no soul, just an objective and that was to hurt.

 

[Dave]

It is a different world to ours. We've seen before that losing a limb results in another Walking Dead. Only decapitation is the safe option. That is why she had no choice. That is why she was "changed," as Judith said. It all makes sense. It is also why Daryl went off on his own into the woods, and why Alexandria is such a miserable place compared to the Kingdom or Hilltop.

Regarding the children, it was Aristotle who said, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

 

[Judderman]

It was mentioned by one of the characters that some people are just evil. So what happened to that lady to become so evil? We will never know. I think actually this child gang could have deserved more time in the show. But only if the timeline was done in a normal chronology. Not back and forth.

 

[REBerg]

I rewatched this episode on the AMC site. It was much easier to follow, with the segments that had been cut out by commercials on DirecTV/AT&T restored.

I also noticed a dramatic musical sound cluing each switch from present to past (the sound of rushing time? ). One other thing I remember from my first watching which, probably because I didn't realize that I watching a flashback, was that one of the walkers Michonne dispatched while searching for Rick's body along the river was not quite like the others.

Did she take out a whisperer, and simply didn't notice in her katana-wielding frenzy? As this "head" hit the ground, it flopped around like a mask. Take another look at the first few minutes of the episode.

Had the existence of the whisperers been revealed at this point, Jesus would not have been taken by surprise in the graveyard fight.

 

[ctg]

Did she take out a whisperer, and simply didn't notice in her katana-wielding frenzy? As this "head" hit the ground, it flopped around like a mask.

Maybe, or then it was a bad prop. I'd only watch this for Judith's segment, not for the Michonne and Daryl getting tortured and then forced to do the impossible thing. And I know from reading over hundred and fifty TWD comic letter sections that Kirkman likes when he can shock. If you tell him that someone should live, you can be assured they'll die or something absolutely horrible happens.

Anyway, Whisperer's make a choice, when they put on the mask and act like the dead. They have to accept that if they encounter a Living, they might die and there's nothing they can do about it. You go where the mass goes and you do, what they do until you get close enough that you can deliver a strike. If Rickland still has to Negan's M2's, it would be hard to be in the crowd, while that is mowing down the targets.

.50 hits you, you will lose a limb, your side, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. If the opposing party decides that it's a Zombie BBQ time, you are going to have a hard time on keeping the role and advancing towards death.

I bet Whisperers can muster large numbers, but capping a well defended opponent, who is prepared to take it all way, is going to be a hard bargain. In their shoes I'd tell Alpha to **** it.

 

[REBerg]

Maybe, or then it was a bad prop

The attention given to it by the camera made me think that it was significant. Or maybe they just wanted to focus on what a great bad prop they had made.

 

[Judderman]

If the mask had come off the whisperer's head, would Michonne not have noticed the human head behind? It puts another negative mark against Michonne's observational skills.

 

[Dave]

You are being harsh on Michonne. She wouldn't expect to meet a Whisperer wearing a mask. Did you think we would meet them prior to them first being introduced? (Unless you had read the comics.) She is under attack and when you kill one, you move on to the next coming at you, you don't dither with those already dispatched. Faces are dead skin and would slip off the bone easily in any case. The camera pans onto it, but that doesn't mean that it was easy to see from the angle in which she was standing.

 

[REBerg]

You are being harsh on Michonne. She wouldn't expect to meet a Whisperer wearing a mask. Did you think we would meet them prior to them first being introduced? (Unless you had read the comics.) She is under attack and when you kill one, you move on to the next coming at you, you don't dither with those already dispatched. Faces are dead skin and would slip off the bone easily in any case. The camera pans onto it, but that doesn't mean that it was easy to see from the angle in which she was standing.

One might tend to miss little details like unanticipated face detachment when fighting for one's life.
In this case, though, I'd need to review the scene yet again to judge. Was Michonne under attack from multiple directions at the time, or was she just methodically terminating walkers mired in the mud?

 

[REBerg]

Nope. Took another look, and Michonne was just casually strolling along, slashing walker heads at the time in question.
Of course, this was a fairly routine MO for Michonne. As @Dave noted, she really had no reason to examine the results of her work before taking her next katana swing.

 

[nixie]

I've a theory about Maggie and Michonne's falling out, the little girl who got away may have been picked up by Hilltop, she's given Maggie her version of what's happened, Maggie may not believe all the girl tells her but enough to turn her against Michonne.

 

[svalbard]

I like that Nixie.

 

[ctg]

First time Walking Dead director Millicent Shelton, who helmed ‘Scars,’ reveals a scene depicting Michonne’s (Danai Gurira) unwilling slaughter of feral children controlled by Jocelyn (Rutina Wesley) underwent “several different versions,” including a minor trim to Michonne’s beating by a two-by four. “It really wasn’t a huge rewrite it was just little tweaks. It kind of was just amping up the kids. The kids kept coming,” Shelton told INSIDER. “That’s what changed in the script — the kids have to keep coming and the adding of [Michonne] saying, ‘No don’t. I don’t want to do this.’”

The children, who branded Michonne and Daryl (Norman Reedus) — leaving them with identical scars — in the name of “strength,” were under orders to mark their kill, then kill their mark. Though Michonne hoped to dispatch the children through non-lethal means, the relentlessly advancing children aimed to strike Michonne’s pregnant stomach and stood in the way of the rescue of abducted daughter Judith, who was safely retrieved only after Michonne killed Jocelyn and the kids.

“Even when we got on set, even when we were with the kids I was like, ‘Guys, you’ve got to be more ferocious, you have to really come at her,’” Shelton said of the young actors, who were provided with an on-set psychologist to better diminish any lingering effects of the brutal scene that culminates with Michonne swiftly executing old college friend Jocelyn.

“Yes, that was definitely intentional,” Shelton said when asked about the clear distinction separating Michonne’s expeditious handling of Jocelyn versus her hesitation to lethally halt the kids. “I mean Jocelyn’s an adult and Jocelyn has betrayed her. And Jocelyn, to be honest, is hitting her with a two-by four! She was wailing on her. I think they cut it down a little bit in the edit from my director’s cut. I mean she was wailing on her!”

Though the actual act of slaying the kids is mostly unseen — the scene instead splices in action from present day, intercutting between flashback and present Michonne as she cuts through a pack of walkers to rescue a 10-year-old Judith (Cailey Fleming) — Shelton added she would have made just one change to the episode.

“I mean, if I had my way I would have had even more juxtapositions of the walkers and the killing and the kids,” she said. “It could have been seamless. But I think the way it is, is really tasteful and is really well done.”

‘The Walking Dead’ Trimmed Down Pregnant Michonne Attack