• Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for season 10, episode 13 of “The Walking Dead,” “What We Become.”
• Sunday was Michonne’s (Danai Gurira) final episode on “TWD” after starring on the show since season three.
• In a montage, viewers saw an alternate “parallel universe” story play out for Michonne.
• If she never saved Andrea on the season two finale, it would have prevented her from meeting Rick. Instead, she would have joined Negan’s group.
• Showrunner Angela Kang tells Insider the show recreated iconic scenes from seasons two, three, six, and seven by merging old footage with newly shot footage to “create something that feels like it might’ve been in the show, but never actually existed until now.”
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

“The Walking Dead” bid farewell to Danai Gurira on Sunday’s episode. In honour of her departure, the zombie series recreated a few iconic scenes from past episodes in order to revisit key moments from Michonne’s time on the show.

“For Michonne’s last episode, we found ourselves thinking a lot about her character and who she is at her core. She’s made some hard choices along the way, but overall, her arc has bent her towards other people and mercy over pure cold pragmatism,” showrunner Angela Kang told Insider via email.

During a hallucination, Michonne lives out an alternate version of her life that would have occurred if she never saved Andrea (Laurie Holden) in the season two finale. The result is a montage showing the rippling effects of that decision.

“When Michonne came into the show, she was a good samaritan. She didn’t have to help Andrea, but she put herself at risk to save a stranger,” Kang continued. “But at other times, she’s denied help to strangers or even attacked them. So we thought it’d be interesting to explore a ‘parallel universe’ story that’s taking place in her mind as her values are tested with this complicated character Virgil (Kevin Carroll).”

In her “what if” scenario, Michonne never would have met Rick and Carl. Instead, she would have become a top member of Negan’s Saviors. Key moments play out from the Saviors’ point of view through Michonne’s eyes.

Sunday’s episode revisits Michonne’s first appearance on the show on the season two finale, the first moment she met Rick on season three, and the controversial season six finale/season seven premiere where Negan killed Glenn and Abraham.

It also revisited the season six episode where Rick’s community infiltrated one of Negan’s bases at night to murder people in their sleep. This time, that scene may have played differently to fans as it showed Glenn killing Saviour Laura (Lindsley Register) who was since redeemed on the show as a member of the Alexandria community in recent years until her death at Beta’s hands.

Fans may have been surprised to see some old faces, including Andrea (Laurie Holden), Glenn (Steven Yeun), Heath (Corey Hawkins) and, of course, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

“We loved the idea of going all the way back to her first moment with Andrea and starting the forking story path there. And then of course, we saw some other beloved characters that are on her mind. People who have died or disappeared,” said Kang.

If you were wondering how the show brought those moments to life, “TWD” didn’t bring back Holden, Yeun, Lincoln, or any of the other actors. They used a mix of old footage from previous seasons with new.

“Our production folks did an amazing job of re-creating some of our sets and lighting to shoot new footage,” said Kang. “Then our VFX and post [production] team merged old footage with new footage to create something that feels like it might’ve been in the show, but never actually existed until now.”

As a reminder, “The Walking Dead” doesn’t have a $US10 million budget per episode like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” did for its final season. In 2011, The Hollywood Reporter reported the budget of a “TWD” episode is around $US2.75 million. It was probably easier for the show to remix the original scenes rather than bring back original cast who are long gone to replicate existing footage.

Still, you can see the differences.

If you go back and compare Sunday night’s season two finale footage with the footage from the actual season, you can tell that the footage has been brightened and cleaned up.

What did you think of the new versions of the old scenes and Michonne’s send-off? Let me know on Twitter @KirstenAcuna.

You can follow along with our “Walking Dead” coverage here.

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