What Only Comics Fans Know About Yumiko In The Walking Dead Season 11
Contains potential spoilers for "The Walking Dead" Season 11
Since she arrived on the scene in Season 9, Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) has become an increasingly important character on "The Walking Dead," and her importance on the show has grown the more she diverges from the storyline of her comic book counterpart. The Season 11 premiere sets her up for a major role in the Commonwealth storyline. Comic fans know about this storyline, which belongs to a different character in Robert Kirkman's series, but has been inherited by Yumiko as a sort of butterfly-effect repercussion of changes made much earlier in the show.
In the episode, "Acheron: Part I," Yumiko and her friends are being held in a Commonwealth processing center, waiting to find out if they'll be allowed into the community. During an interrogation, Yumiko says that she's an Oxford and Harvard-trained lawyer. While they're making an escape attempt, Yumiko sees her own name and photo on a bulletin board where Commonwealth residents have posted missing people who are important to them. Yumiko's long-lost brother Tomi is alive and living in the Commonwealth. So Yumiko decides to stay and find him.
None of this happens to Yumiko in the comics. In the comics, she has no legal training. She's a fairly minor character who starts a relationship with Magna during a journey to the Commonwealth. On the show, she and Magna (Nadia Hilker) were in a relationship when they arrived at Alexandria and have already broken up. Yumiko is being rewritten for the show, and only comics fans know why.
Yumiko is turning into Michonne
In the comics, the storyline that Yumiko is being set up for belonged to Michonne.
Per comics canon, Michonne was a high-powered lawyer in the before times. When she goes to the Commonwealth with Eugene, Yumiko, Magna, and Princess for the first time, she sees a photo of herself on the bulletin board, with a note that reads, "Have you seen my mom?" Turns out, it's from her long-lost daughter Elodie (Issue #175). Michonne reunites with her daughter and becomes an attorney for the Commonwealth. She gets involved in a criminal defense case that has serious ramifications for her character and the Commonwealth as a whole (Issue #184). She never returns to Alexandria.
Obviously, Michonne can't have this storyline on the show, because she's not on the show anymore. Danai Gurira left the series in Season 10, setting off on a journey to find Rick Grimes that will presumably continue on the big screen, though we don't know for sure what the architects of "The Walking Dead" universe have planned for Michonne.
We have a pretty good idea of what they have planned for Miko, though. With a few minor alterations, she's getting Michonne's Commonwealth arc. We're looking forward to seeing how it plays out.