The Walking Dead 1001 recap: Lines We Cross
Skin
Aaron is on the radio reporting the Whisperer mask to Gabriel back at Alexandria, who asks what it means. Aaron doesn’t know, but he thinks the community should go on lockdown just in case the Whisperers are back. Michonne interrupts, noting that they don’t know what it means so everyone should be on alert just in case. They end the call and Michonne tells Aaron that she doesn’t want to start a panic. He rightfully points out that no one saw the Whisperers move out, so how would they know if they’re back? Michonne offers to take a search party out Daryl says he has to meet someone, and Michonne tells him to “tell her” that the next time she goes off she needs to say goodbye first.
Michonne leads a team of six riders on horseback across a green field. All signs of winter are gone now. They split off into three groups to search the area. Michonne kills a walker while Aaron contemplates whether they’re the good guys. The way he sees it, they’re “the villains of someone else’s story.” Michonne doesn’t care about the Whisperers, but he’s not talking about them specifically. Magna and Yumiko don’t see anything from their spot, and neither do Luke and Alden.
Aaron spots a group of walkers on the bridge. He rides off and goes to clear the bridge, leaving the horse behind Michonne tells him to watch their hands as he’s quickly overrun. She kills the walkers and he keeps walking. She tells him he was stupid for almost crossing their border, and she reminds him that she lost Rick on a bridge. He says that they have been holding their breath for months, for nothing. He’s tired of being the nice guy. Eric and Jesus are dead and he’s sick of being nice. She’s sick of it, too, but the Whisperers have a “nuclear weapon,” she says, and it’s all about keeping people alive.
She reports that they didn’t find anything, but Yumiko did. Michonne and Aaron join them at their location in the woods, and they see that there is evidence of a camp site. Alden and Luke follow along as they walk past skeletons and Luke wonders if the campers got into a battle with the walkers. But then they come to a body that has been skinned. It has been there a while.
Deeper in the woods Magna reveals a skin on a log. Aaron reasons that there was at least one Whisperer on their side of the border.
They return to Oceanside and Michonne tells Aaron that they need to manage the fear before it consumes them. She says that she has been thinking about who they are, and she says they are the good guys. She knows who Rick, Carl, Eric and Jesus were. Being the good guys is a decision, and when they question it, they lose sight of it. And that is scarier than the Whisperers.
Michonne moves on and realizes that Judith is telling her brother a story about “the brave man” who saved the day when fighting against the walkers. RJ asks if the brave man went to his friend’s house afterwards but Judith says he died and went to Heaven, and he lives in all of their hearts. Michonne walks up, blinking back tears, and hugs her kids. RJ tells Michonne that he doesn’t like that the brave man died and she explains that some people would do anything to save the day. They hug again.
The hug is interrupted by a boom in the sky. Judith asks if it’s a meteor shower, but that’s not it at all. There are pieces of debris streaking through the sky. Someone calls Michonne to tell her that Eugene is on the radio and he has to talk to her right away.