Check out Violet’s recap of Season 6 Episode 4 of The Walking Dead, titled Here’s Not Here, which focuses solely on Morgan, showing us what he has been through! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 4: Here’s Not Here
The episode begins in the present, with Morgan speaking to the member of the Wolves that he captured.
We then flash back to crazy Morgan, talking out loud to no one, and accidentally starting a fire when his lamp falls over.
Continuing the flashback, we then see Morgan in the woods with a rifle, which he uses to kill walkers by hitting them in the head. He piles up the bodies of the walkers and burns them. This attracts more walkers, which he kills.
The next day, he builds a barrier of pointy sticks surrounding the burned pile of walker bodies, then goes out and kills some more walkers, and drags their bodies back. He uses their blood to write the word “CLEAR” on a nearby rock.
When Morgan goes back into the woods, he comes across two men running through the woods. He uses a pointy staff to stab one in the throat, and strangles the other to death. He continues catching walkers and burning them, then uses their blood to write “CLEAR” on a tree.
Wandering through the woods some more, Morgan comes across a meadow. While there, he hears the bleating of a goat, and follows the sound to a cabin. As he approaches the goat, which is tied up, he hears a man’s voice asking him to step away from the goat. Morgan fires his gun toward the cabin. The voice responds by offering him food. Morgan goes around the perimeter of the cabin, search for the source of the voice, which gives him one last warning. A man sneaks up behind Morgan and hits him in the head with a staff, knocking him out.
When Morgan wakes up, he is inside of a cell in the man’s cabin, with a plate of food. The man comes in and asks Morgan’s name. Morgan responds by saying, “Kill me!” over and over. The man throws a book titled The Art of Peace into the cell, and tells Morgan that his name is Eastman. Just then, he hears the goat, whose name is Tabitha, looks outside and realizes a walker is approaching, so he goes outside and kills it.
Later, Eastman brings Tabitha inside and locks her in a pen. He asks Morgan not to hurt her.
The next day, Morgan sees Eastman outside practicing with his staff, and later using the staff to kill a walker. Morgan continues to mutter to himself.
Eastman attempts to make goat cheese in the kitchen, but the attempt does not go well.
Eastman tells Morgan that he’s a forensic psychiatrist from Atlanta who advised the State about prisoners. He asks Morgan what he does or did. Morgan says that he clears – he kills walkers, people, anything that comes near him, saying that’s why he’s still here.
Morgan breaks off the zipper of his sleeping bag to try to pry off the window bars, but doesn’t get very far, as Eastman returns. He tells Morgan that it’s PTSD. Morgan tells him about the two men he killed, and confirms that he killed a lot of people, but it seems that he also saved people as well. Eastman tries to analyze Morgan’s mindset, and is confident that we can all heal. Eastman reveals that the cell door is not locked, and never has been. He gives Morgan two choices: to stay or go, and says he will not allow Morgan to kill him.
Morgan opens the door and promptly attacks Eastman. They fight, and Eastman finally gets the upper hand. Morgan surrenders. However, Eastman sees that the scuffle has knocked a child’s drawing off the wall and torn it in half, which angers him. Morgan again says, “Kill me,” but Eastman does not, and reminds him of his two choices: the door or the couch. Morgan goes back into the cell and closes the door.
Later, Eastman explains that it was Aikido that he used to kick Morgan’s butt. He also tells him about his daughter giving him a lucky rabbit’s foot, and the next day finding a flyer for Aikido. Eastman brings up a trip that he wants to take, though not by himself. But Eastman doesn’t know where he’s taking the trip.
The next day, Eastman explains that he’s been a vegetarian for awhile. He asks if Morgan will come with him to scavenge some things for the trip. Morgan doesn’t answer. Eastman asks him to watch Tabitha for him while he’s gone, then leaves. Morgan picks of the The Art of Peace and reads the first page, which explains that Aikido means not to kill, even the most evil person. Outside, he hears walkers approaching Tabitha, and ignores it at first, then decides to go and kill the two walkers. Morgan brings Tabitha inside, then drags the walkers’ bodies away.
While dragging one of the bodies, Morgan comes across a graveyard where it seems Eastman has been burying walkers. Morgan begins to dig two graves for the walkers. Eastman finds him out there and praises him for his progress. Before they bury the walkers, Eastman takes their drivers licenses so he can find out their names, which he etches on a piece of wood.
When they return to the cabin, Eastman gives Morgan a staff. They go down to the riverbank, and Eastman teaches Morgan Aikido. Over time, Morgan improves and is as good as Eastman.
When they sit down to dinner one night, Eastman tells Morgan about a prisoner named Chrighton Dallas Wilton that was a psychopath who fooled others about his rehabilitation, but didn’t fool him. The Wilton realized that Eastman knew, so attacked him, wanting to kill him, because he knew he would never get out again. However, his Aikido training saved him. Later, Wilton broke out and went to Eastman’s home to kill his wife, son, and daughter, then turned himself in. Eastman reveals that he built the cell with the intention of bringing Wilton there, putting him in it, and watching him starve to death. When Morgan asks if he did, Eastman replies that he has come to believe that all life is precious.
Eastman talks about needing more gear for the trip, so Morgan brings him to the place where he burned the walkers, since Morgan still has some gear there. Morgan opens up and tells Eastman about losing his wife, Jenny, and son, Duane. Morgan begins to get emotional, so Eastman demands that he practice Aikido forms right then and there, despite Morgan’s protests of “Not here.” A walker approaches, so Eastman tells Morgan to take it. However, Morgan freezes, realizing it is the man he strangled, so Eastman steps in and saves Morgan, pushing Morgan out of the way. In doing so, the walker bits Eastman in the back. Morgan gets angry, saying that wasn’t for him to do. Eastman says Morgan’s coming home with him. Morgan attacks him with the staff, and they fight. But Eastman pins Morgan, and once again Morgan shouts, “Kill me!” As Eastman loads up the body in his wagon, Morgan says, “I told you, not here.” Eastman replies, “That’s the thing. Here’s not here.”
Morgan stays out in the woods, sharpening a stick, and killing a walker. It turns out in doing so, he has saved a man and a woman. They give him a can of food and a bullet to thank him. Morgan grabs his staff and runs back to the cabin. When he gets there, a walker is eating Tabitha. He finds Eastman out in the graveyard digging a grave, and tells him to take a break. Morgan notices a grave for Chrighton Dallas Wilton. Eastman confesses that he did bring Wilton back to the cabin and let him starve to death in the cell. It took 47 days. He says he found his peace when he decided to never kill anything again. When he went to Atlanta to turn himself in, that’s when he found out the world ended. However, Morgan says that the world hasn’t ended.
Later, Eastman explains that the drawing on the wall was by his daughter, which he went home to retrieve before returning to the cabin. He lost his car on the way and walked 30 miles. He tells Morgan he can stay at the cabin, but he shouldn’t, because he’ll be alone. Eastman says he’s ready, and has a gun in the lockbox. But first, he gives Morgan his lucky rabbit’s foot.
Later, we see Morgan doing Aikido by the riverbank alone. Then he leaves the cabin with a backpack and carrying his staff. As he passes through the graveyard, we see the grave marker for Eastman. As he walks, he comes across railroad tracks and a sign for Terminus.
Back to the present, Morgan’s captive asks if he thinks it could work out like that for him. Morgan says he does. The Wolf reveals a wound in his side, and says that when he saw the pictures, he thought there would be medicine here to help. He says that if he doesn’t die, he’s going to have to kill Morgan and everyone there, even the children. Morgan leaves, locking the door behind him. He then hears someone shouting, “Open the gate!” and runs to help.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 6 Episode 4 of The Walking Dead: Here’s Not Here
If you read my thoughts on last week’s Agents of SHIELD episode, you might remember that I mentioned that I don’t usually like when a show interrupts its storyline to do a flashback episode that focuses on one character. You might also remember that I said that episode of Agents of SHIELD was an exception. This episode of The Walking Dead, however, is not. In fact, this is one episode that I had in mind when I said that I don’t like episodes that do that. Especially on a show like The Walking Dead, which has been action packed and thrilling, like this season in particular has up to this point, I feel like it ruins the show’s momentum it had built up. It’s reminiscent of that time when the season was interrupted to focus on the Governor for a couple of episodes. I didn’t like it.
What’s the most frustrating is that there’s this lingering cliffhanger question of whether Glenn is dead or not, or what exactly happens to him next. Not only do we not get to see that this episode, which was not the normal hour but an hour and a half, but it looks like we won’t get to find out what happened to him next weekend either, as the previews seem to suggest that we’ll be focusing on Alexandria. Glenn wasn’t the only cliffhanger either. We wanted to know what happened to Rick.
Putting aside my frustrations about the placement of this episode, I will admit that I appreciate the fact that The Walking Dead tries to be more than just a gory walker show. It tries to have important themes which are intelligent and philosophical. I did want to know what happened to Morgan eventually, just not when there was something more immediate going on. This was an interesting episode, though a lot less exciting than the season as a whole has been up to this point. I hope we can get back to the excitement now.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 4: Here’s Not Here
Walking Dead had been doing everything right so far. The intensity of the episodes, the emotional story arcs for characters, the danger of the walkers returning. Unfortunately this episode let the wind out of my sails. I thought this episode was completely pointless, or at the very least, unnecessarily long. Without seeing this episode, it is pretty easy to infer what happened to Morgan–he eventually left his little hideout, at some point had a nervous breakdown, wound up meeting someone, who trained him meditation, and fighting like Donatello, and he decides to go on a journey, which leads him back to Rick. For me personally, that is all I needed to know. For those who wanted more, I felt the episode could have been 1 hour, and the 1.5 hour special could have been used on something more exciting. I even think the story could have been interwoven more with the present. In fact, a better way to tell Morgan’s story, would have been having Morgan “training” this Wolf he had captured the same way he was trained, and we see flashbacks to when Morgan was learning himself.
I did like Eastman as a character, and it was a little interesting seeing the transformation of Morgan. But I feel so “meh” about this episode I don’t have a lot to say. This about sums up my thoughts on the episode, and I look forward to moving on to the next one, to see the story progress further. I will admit, I am probably a little biased again this episode because I want to know what happened to Glenn, but still…1.5 hours on this?!
Scenes from The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 5: Now
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Walking Dead, titled Now:
