Can ‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’ Ever Redeem Jadis?

It’s hard to think of a more infuriating The Walking Dead character than Jadis. In the original series, she was a shifty artist and a horrible ally with a bad haircut who repeatedly screwed over Rick Grimes and his crew. In the spinoff The World Beyond, she was a full-fledged villain with an even worse haircut who (once again) sold out her friends whenever it suited her. From her brief appearance at the end of this week’s The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, it looks like not much has changed: She’s still a self-interested mercenary with a penchant for very short bangs. But will she at least be compelling this time around?

AMC’s latest Walking Dead spinoff finally reveals what Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) has been up to for the past seven-odd years, and as it turns out, he’s been trying to escape the Civic Republic ever since Jadis swept him up into that helicopter. She saved his life by labeling him a “B” instead of an “A”—the latter of which, as we learned in World Beyond, automatically become lab rats. But by bringing him into the CRM’s clutches, she also doomed Rick to a life in captivity. If there’s one thing we know about this sheriff, it’s that all he ever wants to do is roam free with his loved ones, so this arrangement was never gonna work. It also doesn’t help that he and his love Michonne (Danai Gurira) are extremely stubborn and hellbent on finding one another.

Last week’s premiere gave us a crash course on Rick’s many failed attempts to escape the CRM: We watched him lose a hand, and we breathed a sigh of relief when he and Michonne actually somehow found one another. (Did anyone else think that was going to take a lot longer?) This week, we catch up on Michonne’s side of things, which start out great: She befriends a ragtag crew of allies, including the extremely charismatic explosives aficionado Nat (Matthew Jeffers), and they all strike out to find Rick. But then, a CRM helicopter douses them in chlorine gas, killing everyone but Michonne and Nat—including a very sweet pregnant woman and her partner. Michonne and Nat spend months recovering in an abandoned shopping mall before leaving once more to find Rick. On the way, they shoot down a CRM helicopter they see flying overhead. As we already know from last week, it’s Rick’s.

Michonne is in full vengeance mode before she spots Rick. After the helicopter goes down, she walks from soldier to soldier, removing their masks and telling them to look at her while she slits their throats. When she gets to Rick, however, she dissolves into a puddle of tears as he promises he’s not “with them.” Then, all logic goes out the window. While Michonne suggests they run, Rick convinces her to let the CRM think she’s just a stray survivor who witnessed the violence from afar before he captured her. That way, they can… go back to the Civic Republic and try to run away? Okay…

Our old friend Jadis might have something to do with this. While Michonne pretends to be a helpless woman named Dana in her CRM entrance interview, Rick finds his old not-so-great friend waiting in his room. As diehard Walking Dead fans already know from World Beyond, Jadis was actually a double agent throughout her time on The Walking Dead. She traded human lives for supplies but spared Rick’s life by telling the CRM that he was a “B”—meaning, a follower and not a charismatic leader who could one day lead a rebellion. Since then, it turns out that she’s pulled Rick into something of an unwilling alliance, keeping certain secrets for him while also holding them over his head.

Jadis knows who Michonne is, and that she was there when Nat gunned the helicopter down. Still, she’s told no one. Instead, she hits Rick with a threat: If he and Michonne ever run, she’ll have to kill everyone they love back in Alexandria, including a few people she likes. (In this post-apocalyptic world, that’s what happens when you take shady people in and show them your home instead of just killing them, a Walking Dead Season 8 choice Rick now likely regrets.)

“Let’s continue to keep certain things between you and me,” Jadis tells Rick when he finds her in his apartment. “Like we have.” Clearly, she likes having leverage over him.

As we all know, the biggest secrets Jadis keeps are between her and herself. Of all the villains in the Walking Dead universe, she might be the most grating—and not just because she rarely bothered with complete sentences when we first met her. Actress Pollyanna McIntosh has done a phenomenal job in giving this insufferably flimsy character some real charisma, but it speaks volumes that her motivations hardly ever made sense until after we’d all seen World Beyond. First, she cut a deal with Rick in The Walking Dead Season 7 before double-crossing and making a side bargain with Negan. Then, she went back to Rick only to accidentally get all her fellow Scavengers killed. Some leader!

One would think that having to put your reanimated friends through a giant meat grinder might teach a person some accountability. Instead, after coming to live in Alexandria and finding love with Father Gabriel, Jadis went full traitor and bought her way into the CRM, where she’s been just as slippery as ever. In doing so, she proved every Alexandrian who refused to trust her right. As she tells Rick this week, “My hands are already covered in blood; they can’t get any bloodier.” At this point, we can’t trust this character as far as we can throw her, but she also lacks the menace and gravitas of a full-on villain. She’s just kind of a backstabbing pest.

I have little to no faith that Jadis is in for a redemption arc, transforming her morally spineless character into some kind of savior for Rick and Michonne. I do wonder, however, whether this season might at least complete her villainous arc, which started all those years ago when she was leading those junkyard dwellers the Scavengers and working with the CRM on the side. The Ones Who Live is already pretty cluttered with ominous figures, including Terry O’Quinn’s frustratingly mysterious Major General Beale, so it’s unclear how much real estate Jadis will occupy in this story. Given how annoyingly persistent she’s been in this world, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if she plays some sort of pivotal part in Rick and Michonne’s fate in the end.

Then again, if Michonne has her way, Jadis might never get the chance. As we learned back in the Woodbury days, Michonne has never loved being held captive in a supposedly idyllic community, and these guys already killed off her new best friends right in front of her. As Michonne stands on the rooftop of a CRM building, flicking Nat’s coveted cigarette lighter on and off, it sure looks like she’s planning some nasty revenge. The word engraved on the lighter, which was also the name of Nat’s beloved stepfather, feels like pretty unsubtle foreshadowing: “Danger.”

Related Posts

𝐍𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐚𝐦 – 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 | 𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐆𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐞 | 𝐀𝐛𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐤 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐚

“Nagabandha” is an enchanting film that invites viewers to immerse themselves in the rich tapestry of Indian mythology. The narrative centers on the intricate bond between two…

‘Sinners’ Official Trailer – Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan Dance with the Devil in March 2025

“You keep dancing with the devil; one day, he’s gonna follow you home.” Prepare for a new vision of fear from Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan….

The Exorcist | 4K Ultra HD Official Trailer | Warner Bros. Entertainment

William Friedkin directs one of the most horrifying movies ever made. When a charming 12-year-old girl takes on the characteristics and voices of others, doctors say there…

𝐿𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑂𝑢𝑡 – 𝑂𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑟 [𝐻𝐷]

𝐹𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝐽𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑊𝑎𝑛 (“𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔”) 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛 𝑢𝑛𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑘𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑘. 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑅𝑒𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑐𝑎 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒, 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟…

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐿𝑎 𝐿𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑎 – 𝑂𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑟 [𝐻𝐷]

𝐿𝑎 𝐿𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑎. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛. 𝐴 ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓…

𝑃𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑦𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑎𝑛 2 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑟 – 𝑂𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝐴𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 | 𝑃𝑆-2 | 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑛𝑎𝑚 | 𝐴𝑅 𝑅𝑎ℎ𝑚𝑎𝑛 | 𝑉𝑖𝑘𝑟𝑎𝑚 | 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑎

“𝑃𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑦𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑎𝑛: 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑇𝑤𝑜” 𝑓𝑢𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑑𝑦𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑎 𝑑𝑦𝑛𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑦, 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙…