The Walking Dead Season 9: 5 Ups & 0 Downs From 'Scars'

Ups...

5. It's Incredibly Disturbing (As It Should Be)

When thinking back to earlier seasons of The Walking Dead, the episodes that tend to stick out are those that weren't pleasant to watch. Not because they were gory or violent, however, but because the series' protagonists found themselves in a dire situation and were forced to make a life-changing decision - one that would've had extreme consequences, no matter what option they chose.

Killer Within, Too Far Gone, The Grove, The Day Will Come When You Won't Be, and Who Are You Now? are just a few that spring to mind. These instalments changed the course of the series forever, and evolved our protagonists into different people due to the awful decisions that were forced to make. Scars is in a similar vein to these classics.

During the flashback narrative, Michonne is forced to decide if she should let Jocelyn's kids live or if she should kill them. The former option will keep her humanity intact, but would result in Judith's death, while the latter would ensure Judith's survival, but would ultimately change her as a person. She decides on the latter, which means that the young girls and boys have to be slaughtered. The conflict is utterly superb, and reminiscent of something we would've seen in the aforementioned episodes.

Despite this scene being tastefully handled by director Millicent Shelton, the episode is still an incredibly uncomfortable watch - which is what makes it so brilliant. We often forget what's at stake in this post-apocalyptic world, and episodes like this one stand as a stark reminder of the difficult - and morally ambiguous - decisions our heroes often have to make to stay alive.