The Walking Dead: Michonne

The first two chapters of The Walking Dead: Michonne took some time getting to the core of what made this mini-series special. Both "In Too Deep" and "No Shelter" had some great introspective moments for Michonne, but the story points driving them along weren't nearly as compelling as what was unfolding in Michonne's head. With the final episode, all of the elements finally pull together to deliver a haunting, gut-wrenching conclusion that gives Michonne more depth, and will have you wondering if we get what we deserve or we deserve what we get.

The Walking Dead: Michonne might be Telltale Games' darkest story yet, and that's saying something. I mean, both seasons of The Walking Dead weren't exactly easy on the heart and mind, but the Michonne mini-series in particular has wrangled with some deeply troubling issues for its main character. On top of her past personal traumas, Michonne's had to deal with a lot of unfortunate events in the present, making this brief adventure incredibly tense. It hasn't been without its faults, but the second chapter's marked improvement over the introductory episode gives us hope next week's finale will deliver a satisfying conclusion. This latest trailer for chapter three, "What We Deserve" sure doesn't make it look like kind of resolution will come easy though. The hard way it is then.

Exploring the tragic and mysterious history of The Walking Dead's Michonne sounded like a great idea when Telltale Games announced its mini-series. Finally, we'd get to see things from the perspective of one of the comics' most intriguing and deadly characters. However, the first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne was fairly rudimentary and didn't quite break narrative ground in the way we'd hoped it would. Still, with two episodes remaining, there was hope Telltale had something new to say in this world and about this character. The Walking Dead: Michonne's second episode, "Give No Shelter," manages to give a bit more insight into our protagonist's past and motivations, even if it still feels like we've been down this road before.

Getting to learn more about Michonne has been something The Walking Dead fans have wanted for years. With Telltale Games putting her front and center for her own mini-series, we'd finally have a chance to not only get to know more about Michonne, but we'd also be in her shoes the whole time. Thought the first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne didn't exactly open the floodgates of new details or information, there were hints of promise in Telltale's adventure. The upcoming second episode looks to ramp things up even more, and will hopefully delve a bit deeper into the sword-slinging bad-ass' motivations. Things did not go so well for Michonne in the previous episode. After departing Alexandria while no one was paying attention, she hopped aboard Pete's ship for the south. While out searching for supplies, the group was ambushed by some not-so-nice-folks, putting Michonne's plan to search for her missing daughters on hold. This group doesn't have the best intentions, at least through Michonne's eyes, so it's not long until she scrapes together a plan to escape. Judging by the trailer for this second episode, it looks like those plans go to sh-- really quickly.

Hearing that Telltale Games would be exploring Michonne's past in depth for the first time was exciting. Hints and small bits of her history have been dribbled out slowly in The Walking Dead comics, but the driving forces of Michonne's life have never really been dealt with the way they have with other characters. Though some new ground is tread, the first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne doesn't bring much we didn't already know to the front. What's more, it spends so much time introducing new characters, there's hardly any time for Michonne to show off.

While February is traditionally a big month for The Walking Dead fans, what with the television show's current season's second half kicking off, it's about to get even bigger. Later this month, Telltale Games will return to the world of The Walking Dead, delving for the very first time into the lives of characters from the comics. Though Telltale has been telling stories in its games that take place in the comic book universe, The Walking Dead: Michonne marks the first time players will be in control of people not created specifically for the games. As you might recall when the teaser trailer dropped in December, TWD: Michonne will feature the self-reliant bad-ass of Rick's survivors and deal with Michonne's personal quest to find answers about what happened to her family during the time leap in the comics. Michonne left Alexandria a short time after she and the rest of the survivors fended off Negan's attacks, and didn't return until about two years later. Telltale's three-episode mini-series will hopefully bring about some answers as to why she left, where she went, and give Michonne more characterization than just being a reclusive hard-ass.

Though Telltale Games had its fair share of successes before stepping into the world of The Walking Dead, the first season of that episodic adventure is what sparked the developer's launch into the gaming stratosphere. The first two seasons of Telltale's The Walking Dead focused almost entirely on original characters within the comic book universe, but in 2016, a new mini-series will delve deeper into the story of one of The Walking Dead's most central characters, Michonne. The first teaser trailer for The Walking Dead: Michonne debuted at the 2015 Game Awards, and thought it was brief, gave a nice glimpse into what Telltale has planned for the fan-favorite character. The mini-series (which will be shorter than Telltale's traditional 5-6 episode seasons) will focus on the two-year gap in time between volumes 21 and 22 of the comic, when Michonne left Alexandria to return to Georgia to learn what happened to her children, and when she finally returns in volume 24.