By: Heather Seebach
**Warning: The following contains spoilers from S6E4**
As I predicted, the show kept us hanging one more week before we find out Glenn's fate with this Morgan-centric bottle episode. Things really slowed down this week but quality dialogue and acting made "Here's Not Here" a decent episode, albeit one I likely will not revisit. It definitely has its silly moments but John Carroll Lynch and his pet goat bring it up a notch for sure!
This episode catches us up on where Morgan went between "Clear" (when last he saw Rick Grimes) and when he re-emerged a peace-loving bo staff warrior. While on a "clearing" rampage in the woods, Morgan comes upon a cabin, where he is captured and imprisoned. He begs to be killed but his captor, Eastman, is a peaceful hippie who thinks he can rehabilitate his new friend between batches of failed goat cheese. Eastman is of course the "cheese maker" to whom Morgan referred in episode 2 of this season.
John Carroll Lynch, or as he is better known - "that guy" - is great as usual. While he often plays serial killers, this time he's a former forensic psychiatrist who interviewed many-a killer. The backstory about Crichton Dallas Wilton is easily the best part of this episode, as we rarely hear of survivors who lost their whole family BEFORE the zombie apocalypse. Here's a rare case of a recluse who was alone even before "the world ended" which is pretty interesting.
The second best part of the episode was the goat, amiright? She was so cute with her little baaaaaah's everytime a walker showed up, at which point she'd immediately return to eating some grass. We need more Tabitha. In fact, IF TABITHA DIES, WE RIO......oh.
By far the WORST part of this episode is that obnoxious "rage" filter that came up whenever Morgan was feeling extra crazy. Or whenever it felt like it. Just. Stop.
So Eastman trains Morgan in the ways of Aikido and oatmeal burgers and goat-sitting. And after Morgan goes apeshit a third time, begging to be killed, all it takes is Eastman revealing he starved a man to death to make Morgan totally okay again. Who knew?
Speaking of, I call bullshit on Eastman's "all life is precious" philosophy, considering he only came to that lifestyle choice AFTER starving a man to death for 47 days! "I swore I'd never kill again." Because you live on your own in a secluded cabin in the woods, maybe?! Shit, he nearly smashed Morgan in the face for breaking his daughter's drywall painting - do you really think he wouldn't kill again if another Crichton Dallas Wilton came along and threatened his loved ones (if he had any)?
And that's exactly what the Wolves are - pure evil. So Morgan needs to forget this "all life is precious, no matter how evil" bullshit and stop leaving liabilities lying around to come back and bite other survivors in the ASS! (if you imagined me saying that like Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws, you are spot on). I think maybe this Wolf he is holding prisoner needs to tell a tale of his own. Maybe tell Morgan he killed his OWN family to prove these Wolves are pure evil, not poor souls simply suffering from PTSD like Morgan was. Eastman seemed like a nice guy but his philosophy was just as misguided as Morgan's and it's going to get more people (and goats) killed.
Next week I assume we will find out what happened to Glenn. I'm seeing now that this whole season is about cliff-hangers and non-linear narrative. Similarly, we didn't know Morgan kept the Wolf alive until this episode (we just didn't care nearly as much as we do about Glenn). So hey, maybe we'll find out Tabitha is actually alive two episodes from now, yeah? Maybe some other goat fell on top of her last-minute, yeah? A girl can dream...
