[rating=5.00] “He’s Not Here”
For the first time since the sixth season premiered, we get a slowdown from the breakneck speed and the confined timeline of the first three episodes. With a number of character’s fates still up in the air, be it by hopeful fan theories or simply the cliffhanger ending from last week, it’s set aside to focus on Morgan.
Utilizing a rather unimaginative flashback, Morgan tells his own story to a captive member of The Wolves, not unlike Peter Falk telling Fred Savage the tale of The Princess Bride. Chronicling the time from when Rick left him in “Clear,” back in season three, up until his quest to find Rick Grimes. When we see him in his stronghold, burning it down and screaming “you were supposed to,” clearly still affected by his son Duane’s death, we see him take to the world as a knowing, ruthless killer of all, in his own words “get near him.”
Recreating his stronghold, of sorts, in the woods, utilizing his zombie-trapping technique that seems surprisingly under-employed by every other character on the show, he’s the worst of humanity. A psychopath killing without provocation, he descends upon the cabin of Dr. Eastman (John Carroll Lynch), who tries to talk him into a conversation while being shot at.
Of course, this is where we get the backstory filled in as to where Morgan acquired the radical change in his character. Waking up a captive, Morgan goes from screaming “KILL ME!” to helping with his crops and becoming an aikido master over the course of a few conversations and one obligatory training montage. Morgan learns not only the physical practice of aikido, but why Eastman follows it, as a man who talks rather intimately about his relationship with humanity’s evil.
Before long, Morgan’s past decisions catch up to him (kind of like the cliffhanger we never got around to), and Eastman finds himself bit, before returning to his cabin to finish up some chores before deeming himself “ready.” It’s not a terrible episode, and while a break was inevitable from the tempo of the first three episodes, but one, long story time with Morgan seemed unnecessary, particularly for an episode that ran a full 90 minutes.
While Morgan’s code he’d learned from Eastman seems to be proven wrong at every possible turn, it could be interesting to see whether his character will choose to maintain his integrity or simply revert to the dead-eyed psychopath that Rick seems like he’s on the very fringes of becoming.
