The Walking Dead, “Here’s Not Here,” was written by Scott M Gimple and directed by Stephen Williams. This is Williams first time directing TWD, but his long list of credits includes
How to Get Away With Murder,
Person of Interest, and
Lost. This super-sized episode provided an oasis of relative calm in the juggernaut that has been this season. The episode allowed showrunner Gimple to pause and reflect on an alternative way of coping with the horror of the world. The episode follows such classic theatre as Waiting for Godot and made me also think of Deathtrap and Sleuth. The episode belongs to Lennie James (Morgan) and John Carroll Lynch (Eastman), who both deliver what should be award-winning performances.
The episode begins in the “present” – though I’m not entirely sure we can exactly trust the timeline this season. However, the episode begins and ends at some point close to the end of the attack on Alexandria, and we see Morgan telling the story of how he came to be as he is now. It isn’t until the very end of the episode that we realize he’s telling his story to the leader of the wolves (Benedict Samuel). I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention just how good Samuel is at being murderously creepy. His almost innocent delivery makes his promise to kill every person, including the children, in Alexandria even more chilling.
Morgan takes us back to essentially where the series left him in “Clear” in season 3. His entire purpose is to “clear.” Morgan’s distress and distance from reality are nicely reflected in things around him going out of focus – much like what was done with Nicholas in the previous episode. The title is a reflection of Morgan’s disconnection with reality - he's here but he's not here, his disconnection both mentally and physically from where he finds himself. There is a wonderful through line this season on the theme of how people cope with the violence and imminent death surrounding them.
Morgan’s killing of the two men, who might have been father (Chris Gann) and son (H Patrik Coyne) is both brutal and horrific. And who wasn’t screaming at their screens for Morgan to really finish them? Of course at least one if not both were going to come back as walkers! Morgan sets up a camp and continues to clear and burn the corpses – just as he was doing the last time we saw him. The walker coming through the fire after him was a great effect – and also totally creepy.
We see Morgan clearing with a stick – a stick that he’s sharpened on one end. He’s awkward with the stick though which is a nice contrast to how we know he is now. Morgan hears a goat – Tabitha – and follows the sound, stepping over an alarm line of cans and finding the goat tied outside a well-kept cabin complete with solar panels.
I loved how we here Eastman’s calm voice, “Step away from the goat. I still need her. I’m trying to make cheese.” Morgan has a gun and starts shooting, and Eastman’s voice remains calm throughout until he comes out and takes Morgan out with his stick. Did anybody else think that he looked like Obi Wan Kenobi in that robe??
Morgan wakes in a cell with food. We learn later that the cell door was never locked, and we learn later that the previous occupant of the cell was never offered food. Morgan is trapped within the cell of his own mind, and it’s Eastman who is able to bring him out of it over the course of the episode. Morgan wants Eastman to kill him, and begs him to do it throughout the episode. In the end, it is Morgan who must kill Eastman to save him from turning, from losing his humanity. Eastman doesn’t kill Morgan because he recognizes that he hasn’t lost his humanity.
Morgan watches from the cell as Eastman protects Tabitha and takes out the walkers with his stick. He then drags the bodies off. Eventually, Morgan will kill a walker to protect Tabitha and drags the body off to discover that Eastman has a graveyard. He checks the bodies for identification and even makes markers for the graves. This is a terrific contrast to how Morgan dealt with the bodies. Morgan simply wanted to clear the bodies from memory and existence by setting fire to them. Eastman pays homage to their previous humanity, recognizing who they were and returning them to the earth. Circles are important to Eastman.
Eastman waits to talk to Morgan. He tells him that he’s originally from Atlanta, and he’s a forensic psychologist. Ok. It’s a little convenient that the crazy person just happens to stumble upon a psychologist, but let’s just go with it. Eastman asks Morgan what he did or what he does now. Morgan tells him he clears. When Eastman asks why, Morgan tells him that the only reason he’s still alive is to kill everything – the living and the dead. Eastman tells him flat out that that’s bullshit.
After observing Morgan for a few days, Eastman gives his diagnosis. It’s PTSD. He tells Morgan, “You’ve been through trauma.” Eastman figures out the trauma has to do with Morgan’s wife, and we later find out that Eastman knows exactly what that feels like. He tells Morgan, “There’s a door and you want to go through it, but then you’re right back in the horrible moment.” But “one of those doors will lead you out.” Morgan swears he will kill Eastman, but Eastman insists that humans aren’t built to kill because we all feel and we’re all connected. He tells Morgan that he’s only ever met one truly evil person. The rest were just damaged. “It’s all a circle and everything gets returned.” The circle is complete when Morgan’s walker kills Eastman and another circle completes as Morgan tries to redeem the wolf.
Eastman gives Morgan a choice. Go or stay. And he means it both mentally and physically. He promises to show him another way if he stays, but he also promises that he won’t allow Morgan to kill him – though in a sense Morgan does. Eastman starts showing Morgan another way on the very first day when he gives him the book, The Art of Peace. Morgan does attack Eastman, and once again begs him to kill him. He retreats to the cell, refusing to either go or stay, but not before breaking the child’s picture on the wall. And it’s that that brings Eastman closest to killing Morgan.
Eastman tells Morgan that he kicked his ass – re-directed his ass – with Aikido. Eastman then tells Morgan about how his daughter lead him to Aikido. She found him drinking one night when the horror of the things his patients from the prison had done was really getting him down. She gave him a rabbit’s foot for luck, and the next day he saw a poster for Aikido. Morgan’s first foray out of the cell is to look at the picture. It’s no surprise that Eastman would reach him through his own child given Morgan’s guilt over Duane’s death and the love he had for his own child.
Morgan has brought Eastman back to the land of the living as well. He determines that it’s time to get back into the world, and he’s taking Morgan with him. Eastman leaves to scavenge supplies for the trip, and asks Morgan to keep an eye on Tabitha. Starting with a pet, with an animal, with a total innocent, is a good first step, and of course, Morgan does come out to save her. But he also starts to read the book and learns that “In Aikido, we try avoiding killing even the most evil person.”
Eastman returns to find Morgan has saved the goat and thanks him, declaring, “Progress!” Eastman begins Morgan’s training in earnest. There are beautiful shots of the two training beside the river. It’s truly a kind of pastoral, peaceful place that Morgan has come to to reclaim his sanity. Even on his first approach of the cabin, there’s a beautiful and somewhat incongruous shot of a dirty, bloody Morgan crossing a clearing full of wildflowers. And when Morgan chooses life, he runs toward it again through the same field, this time clean both physically and spiritually.
Eastman is also training Morgan’s soul. He tells him, “It’s about re-directing, evading and actually caring about the welfare of your opponent.” You have to value your own life and accept what you’ve done and then move forward with a code never to do it again. You have to accept everyone, protect everyone, and in doing that protect yourself and create peace. Combined with Eastman’s words about humans not being built to be killers, it’s easy to see where Morgan’s conversations with Carol (Melissa McBride) came from when he told her she didn’t want to kill and didn’t like it.
Morgan eventually asks what we’ve all been thinking. Why does Eastman have a cell in his cabin? Eastman tells Morgan about Creighton Dallas Welton. Eastman built the cabin with his wife. Welton was the one and only truly evil psychopath that Eastman ever met in his job at the prison. While interviewing him, Welton’s mask slipped and Eastman saw through him. Welton attacked him and it was only Aikido that saved his life. Welton later escaped and all he did before turning himself back in was brutally murder Eastman’s wife and daughter.
Eastman tells Morgan that Welton then started a program at the prison to grow flowers. It’s a nice symbolic nod to Eastman having to cross his own field of wildflowers to find his own peace at the cabin. Eastman tells Morgan he built the cell to watch Welton starve to death. Morgan asks him if he did it, and Eastman answers, “I’ve come to believe that all life is precious.” That’s why they’re having oatmeal burgers – he won’t even kill an animal. Morgan tells him, “You’re good at it. Re-directing.” He knows that Eastman hasn’t answered his question… yet.
Morgan takes Eastman to his former camp to get supplies for their trip. Eastman looks around at the signs and wants to know who Morgan lost. He tells him his wife and son, but that’s not good enough. Eastman presses him to name them, and Morgan does. It’s hard to single out just one scene in which these two actors are brilliant because they simply act the hell out of this entire episode. Morgan is clearly rocked by the admission and Eastman redirects him again, insisting they do forms right then and right there. I loved the subtle way that Eastman corrects Morgan’s stance, he makes his base a little more solid by re-positioning his feet – just as he has done for him mentally and spiritually.
When the walker that Morgan created comes out of the woods, he freezes. When Eastman steps in to save Morgan, he ends up getting bitten himself. It’s shockingly similar to how David is bitten and killed in the previous episode. Morgan rails at Eastman that “That wasn’t for you to do. You can’t just step in!” Morgan returns to wanting Eastman to kill him. But Eastman tells him, “you’re coming back” – to the land of the living and the land of the sane. “You made it out.”
Morgan tells Eastman, “I said not here.” And in a wicked twist on the title, Eastman replies, “Here’s not here.” But is this too much for Morgan? We see him once again sharpening his stick – And I loved the scene in which Eastman presents Morgan with the “fixed” stick with the point taken off. Is Morgan about to return to his previous ways? He comes upon a walker chasing a couple. He kills the walker and the couple (LB Brown and Bethany Anne Lind) are clearly terrified of him. She offers him chicken soup – it heals everything, right? – and a single bullet. She thanks him and they move off. Morgan has come back too far to return to the way he was and runs back to the cabin.
He’s too late, and how many other people were screaming at their televisions over Tabitha’s death? Stupid humans! Eastman is understandably upset, and says, she figured out the door was open too. Morgan points out that he didn’t figure it out, Eastman had to show him the way out. Morgan, of course, finds Welton’s grave, and Eastman now finishes the story.
He did managed to get Welton out of prison and brought him to the cabin. It took 47 days for him to starve to death. And then, Eastman, tells him, “I was gone. Where you were. I wasn’t trying to open the door.” The killing didn’t give him peace. He found peace when he decided not to kill again. He went back to Atlanta then only to find that the world had ended. Morgan tells him the world hasn’t ended, and Eastman wants again points to “Progress!” But Eastman has never had to live in the world as it is now. Given what people have had to do to survive, how far from normal they are, can they all come back as Morgan did? Is Carol a much more worthy successor to the teachings than the wolf leader?
Eastman tells Morgan the story of the picture, and then tells him that he could stay at the cabin, but he shouldn’t. “Everything is about people. It couldn’t be just me; it shouldn’t be just you.” And then Eastman asks Morgan to kill him before he dies and turns. Eastman gives Morgan the rabbit’s foot and tells him he hopes it will be lucky for him too. Morgan tells him he’s decided. We see graves for Tabitha and Eastman and Morgan practicing one more time before suiting up and heading out. We see him turn for Terminus, and like so many of the episodes this season, Morgan’s story now dovetails back in to where we saw him last season, and then back into the present.
Morgan finishes his story to the wolf leader, who asks, “You think it can work out that way with me?” Morgan says yes. But let’s not forget that Morgan isn’t a forensic psychologist. And the wolf’s next words are chilling: “You notice I’m sweating a bit? Shaking a bit?” We think maybe he’s having an emotional epiphany, but he goes on to prove that is exactly the opposite. We see that he’s wounded – it’s a physical response. He saw the pictures in Aaron’s bag and thought there might be medicine in Alexandria. But that was before he lost. He goes on, “I might die, but if I don’t, I’m going to have to kill everyone here. That’s my code. Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry.” The wolf feels no remorse about what he does and it’s clear that they were killing as much for pleasure as for necessity.
Morgan clearly feels that this didn’t go quite the way he thought it would. We see him go out, leaving his prisoner in the basement. He hesitates at the door, but he locks him in. Morgan doesn’t trust him the way Eastman trusted Morgan. And nor should he! Does anyone think that this isn’t going to end badly anyway? Was this guy crazy to begin with or has he simply become something entirely new – and out of Eastman’s own expertise – due to the extreme nature of what he’s been through? Is this a form of PTSD from which there is no coming back? But let's also not forget that Denise is a reluctant medical doctor but is trained as a psychiatrist...
While some have criticized this episode for being too “slow” or too long and seemingly indulgent, I would argue that having this seemingly peaceful episode in the middle of a non-stop action season, is an important pause to help increase the tension of the various story arcs. The episode also brilliantly dovetails with the previous episodes and at least the one to follow in ways that I won’t comment on here. What did you think of the episode? Have I changed your opinion? Has Morgan bitten off more than he can chew? Will his keeping this prisoner come full circle to result in someone else’s death? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
About the Author - Lisa Macklem
I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, Agent Carter, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, The X-Files, Defiance, Bitten, Killjoys, and a few others! I'm active on the Con scene when I have the time. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.
