I’m doing a rewatch of TWD and wanted to get your thoughts on Terry’s comment during Michonne’s flashback in 4x9, “After.”
When Michonne is serving the charcuterie board, Terry says, “You’ve gotten good with a sword. You know how valuable that is now? You know what that makes you?”
His tone has always stood out to me as resentful, fearful, and a little accusatory. And Michonne seems completely unbothered by it—almost like she’s heard some version of this criticism before.
I wonder if Terry (and maybe Mike, too) were unsettled by the realization that Michonne had become strong, capable, and perhaps didn’t need them in the same way anymore.
What do you make of Terry’s statement and the way Michonne responds to it? Thank you!
Thanks for asking my thoughts! I really enjoy these questions and reading your take on this one. That scene in S4 was always such a striking and devastating insight into Michonne’s backstory. There are a couple of things that come to mind when I try to think about how I interpret Terry saying, “you know what that makes you.” Like, I feel like he could be thinking Michonne getting good with a sword makes her a survivor, makes her a potential threat and target to others - since a valuable skill in the apocalypse is also a skill that puts you on the radar of both good people and corrupt people - and it makes her someone who has adapted to this brutal world in a way that Mike and Terry hadn’t yet been able to.
It makes me think about when Rick ripped Joe’s throat out with his teeth. When he talks with Daryl after, Rick suggests that the place he went to is one that most wouldn’t and couldn’t tap into. Michonne was able to tap into what it takes to survive without also losing her humanity, which is rare and makes her distinct, too. I could see Terry and Mike having to try and comprehend what’s in Michonne that she could lock in in ways they couldn’t, and knowing what she’s become is valuable and also dangerous.
Terry and Mike seemed to want to check out and mentally escape the world, and so I could also see Terry knowing Michonne is showing signs that she can make it, which makes it likely she’ll outlive them, since they perhaps were feeling more like giving up.
And, from what I can remember of Michonne’s response to the comment, part of me thinks her response is also to the mix of the dream and the past flashback. Like her pre-ZA dream self not yet catching up to her post-ZA dream self, if that makes sense. But it did always stand out to me how Michonne’s dream felt like she was remembering herself as maybe too hopeful or convinced that things were going to work out, and then everything was ripped from her. I always felt like that was Michonne being hard on herself for how, in the early days of the ZA, she thought if she adapted and became a survivor, she could protect her family, but then, even with everything she was willing to do to protect them, it still didn’t keep Andre, Mike, and Terry alive.
I could see Michonne feeling crushed that her ability to survive didn’t translate to them, and left her to survive alone with the guilt and pain. That’s another reason it’s so moving that in the same episode as that dream, she finds Rick and Carl in the home, as they’ll help bring her back and be able to deeply and personally understand the survivor and fighter she is.
