The Walking Dead season 9 episode 12 recap: Guardians

Negan is in his cell when Michonne arrives. “Welcome home,” he greets her. He’s wondered how long it would be before she came to see him. Apparently he’s only talking to her, so she wants to know why he came back. Negan is glad she asked. He tells her that he went to her house and he could have bashed in lots of heads. She calls his bluff and thinks that he couldn’t make it outside the walls so he came back. Negan admits that things have changed, but so has he. He wants her to trust him, but she’s not open to the idea. At all.

He knows she’s keeping him there as a reminder of Rick’s legacy, but he also knows that her control is slipping. His window is open and he hears things. He can help. He could help her, be a sounding board. He knows she wrote up a constitution that gives her power over the council. She’s done talking, but he wants her to use him as a resource. As Michonne moves to leave, she orders the windows closed and that’s when she spots Judith sitting there. Negan looks away, knowing his only friend might have just been busted.

Connie and Daryl are out looking for Henry. She has to remind him that she needs to see his lips move. They can see signs of a struggle and they know that the Whisperers caught up to him. Two walkers approach and they each take them out. Daryl has Dog fetch the arrow but he breaks it. Connie smiles. “Bad dog,” he mutters.

Henry watches as Beta skins a walker alive, carving its skin away from its skull and pulling it off in one piece. Alpha circles Henry, asking if he wants to know why they do it. She says civilization died and now so have they. The dead have won. As she talks, the two Whisperers who had been chatting earlier approach. They’re not happy with how things played out and how many of their own people they lost to get Lydia back. They had two perfectly good hostages that they gave up for nothing.

Alpha, hunched forward with her hands behind her back, calmly tells them that they learned all about the strangers from the interaction. They know what they have, whether they’re armed, and if they’d win in a battle. It was worth it. She reminds them that they can challenge her place as the leader.