The Walking Dead Review: "Here's Not Here"

The episode opens with Morgan ranting to himself in the apartment we last saw him in during Season 3. Clearly this Morgan is still the one Rick encountered, the one still tormented by the loss of his family, tiptoeing on the edge of madness and filled with rage. During his ranting and pacing, he inadvertently knocks over a kerosene lamp and the whole place goes up. Morgan then secures a place in the woods with a makeshift circle of spears impaling incoming walkers. He even kills some survivors that were following him at one point, including one with his bare hands. It’s a true testament to how far gone Morgan is that there is no hesitation when he takes these people’s lives. He just does it. He clears everything… walkers, people, it doesn’t matter. That’s what he does. He then comes across a log cabin in the woods, which he’s lured to by the bleating of a goat. This is where Morgan and we are introduced to Eastman. Morgan again tries to clear this area but is subdued by Eastman.

Morgan awakes in a cell in that cabin he had seen and the audience begins to see who this man Eastman (played by John Carroll Lynch) truly is. Eastman is a man of peace and understanding and doesn’t believe anyone is ever too far gone. His experience comes from his time before the end of the world when he worked as a forensic psychiatrist at a prison. He even explains that out of 825 interviews he conducted with various inmates, some of which have committed acts from the darkest part of the human soul, that he’s only ever met the one truly evil person. He knows that Morgan is suffering from a type of PTSD that has brought him to where he is now and slowly begins to crack this shell around Morgan. Eastman begins to train Morgan in Aikido, which is a style not about killing but about redirecting attacks. He shares his knowledge and training with Morgan, along with the tale of his own personal tragedy and how he overcame it. We slowly begin to see the formation of the Morgan we know now.