On this week's episode of The Walking Dead, Morgan tells his story to one of the Wolves that's been captured. Before Morgan got to Alexandria, he was living alone and lost his mind. Morgan sets a bunch of walkers on fire and sets up a camp, away from his home. A couple of men have been following Morgan and Morgan flatout just kills them when he gets the chance.
Morgan stumbles upon a couple of cabins and a goat and he tries to take the goat and a voice tells him to leave it be. The mysterious person offers him food. They tell Morgan to put his gun down and he does not. After a last chance, someone knocks him out and puts him in a jail cell inside the cabin.
Morgan wants to die, but the man tosses him a book called The Art of Peace. The man says his name is Eastman. He feeds Morgan, brings the goat inside and tells Morgan not to hurt the goat. After a few days, Eastman starts to talk to Morgan about his past life. Morgan just says he "clears." The next day, Morgan wants to escape the cell and starts prying apart the boards. Eastman comes back and Morgan says he wants to kill him, but Eastman explains humans don't need to kill. Eventually, Eastman says that the cell door is open and Morgan can stay or go. Morgan gets out and goes for the attack.
Eastman is tougher than he looks and puts up a good fight and eventually, takes Morgan down. Morgan gets up and goes back to the cell and closes the door. Eastman tells Morgan about Akido and we can start to see a change with the character. Eastman really pulls Morgan into his style of life, keeping a cool head, and learning to fight his way. The two start to bond as Morgan comes back to reality.
Eastman continues to train him and a walker heads towards them. It's one of the men Morgan killed earlier. He pauses and Eastman comes in and kills the walker, after getting bitten. Morgan runs off and when he comes back, the goat is being eaten by a walker. Eventually, Morgan decides it is time to move on. He leaves after burying Eastman. Morgan walks and sees a sign for Terminus and heads towards it.
Back in present day, the Wolf that Morgan talks to says he's going to kill everyone in Alexandria if he lives, even the children. Morgan walks away and locks the cell the Wolf is being held in.
This episode is all about bridging the gap in Morgan's journey, which is something the view needs to see, considering that the last time we saw him, he was nuttier than a Jif factory. This is actually a really important episode to understand how Morgan became the way he is now. We also get to see how he got the staff he fights with now as well. This episode is all about transition and moving forward.
"Here's Not Here" was a long episode, but at no point did it feel like it dragged on. The road to becoming a new person is not a fast nor an easy one and that's really what we get to see here. There's a few scenes of dialogue that give us more insight into Eastman's character and a few that let us get into the head of Morgan, but a lot of the change was visual through scenes of Morgan becoming less aggressive and more of a pacifist. The episode had some fantastic pacing and even though it was a longer episode, it really worked exceptionally well.
The biggest disappointment comes from the fact this episode, which is good in its own right, follows THE BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SHOW'S HISTORY. That is the biggest aggravation with this episode. Everyone wants to know if Glenn's death was real or not... Guess we get to wait another week to find out.
Anyway, it's heart wrenching to watch Morgan come so far and lose it when the man he killed comes back. On top of that, Eastman gets bit and it almost seems like Morgan goes back to his old ways, in a sense. He straddles that line between insanity and sane. While he ends up going back to Eastman, there's this moment where we wonder if everything is about to come undone, as he saves those two kids from the walker.
"Here's Not Here" was one of the best episodes of the season and one of the best episodes of the series. Sure, last week was thrilling and offered a lot of suspenseful moments, but this episode did quite a spectacular job and really getting viewers into the head of a character who has gone through so many changes throughout this series, who also hasn't been a part of the group for very long. This season, so far, has been spectacular and hopefully, it doesn't lose any momentum.