The Walking Dead season 9 episode 5 recap: What Comes After

Michonne is working on the charter while Judith makes some art with seashells. A man comes to tell Michonne that Maggie is there. Judith beams. “Aunt Maggie,” she says. Michonne rushes off and is at the jail when Maggie arrives. Maggie wants her to step aside, but Michonne is resolute. She asks if Glenn would want Maggie to go through her to get to Negan. Her father wouldn’t want that. Maggie thinks that killing Negan will start things over anew, and she also thinks that if Negan had killed Rick in such a brutal fashion that Michonne would feel the same way, but Michonne doesn’t think that at all. Maggie wants Michonne to stop thinking that the pain is going to go away, because she can’t. Maggie is desperate and she can’t live like this anymore and asks Michonne for another way. “I can’t,” Michonne says through tears. Michonne asks if Maggie will be able to live with “what comes after” and she says she can’t but she has to.

Michonne hands over the key.

Maggie goes inside and Negan chuckles that Michonne gave up the key so easily. Negan remembers Maggie and thought she’d win after all this time. Maggie orders him to his knees. Negan ignores her and reminisces about killing her husband. He thought she’d had come for him sooner. She orders him to his knees again and Negan taunts her about bashing in his brains and popping his eye out. He gets on his knees and then says that killing Glenn was worth it. Maggie puts the key in the lock and asks him to come into the light. Negan breaks down, begging her to kill him. She drags him out of the cell and he begs for death because he wants to be with his wife and Lucille. He admits he can’t do it and he needs to be dead. He can’t be the way he is in that cell. He needs to die.

Maggie’s eyes open in realization as he moans. She orders him back to his cell because he’s already worse than death. She wants to kill Negan, not this suffering man. He goes inside and closes the cell door on his own, then he goes to the cot and sobs about how it was never supposed to be like this.

When Maggie emerges from the jail, Michonne is there. Michonne sees that the crobar is still clean. Maggie’s eyes are full of some unknown emotion. Diane runs up and says that there’s something wrong at the bridge.