Coming off last week’s high, The Walking Dead takes a step back and gives us the backstory of Morgan everyone wanted to know. However, they wanted to know it AFTER learning Glenn’s fate, and not making us wait another week.

*spoilers, of course*

I’m not going to talk about Glenn except right now. Steven’s name was not in the opening credits. Do I think they are screwing with us? Yes, I do. Not only did I find Glenn’s death so…not good for his character, but all the pictures of him and a new character not yet introduced kind of give it away. Unless Glenn’s a freaking ghost, why is he on set with Jesus?

Okay, moving onto the episode.

I liked it. Many people found it slow, or boring, or not necessary. The writers did it on purpose after the first three episodes just being insane to watch. Episode three wasn’t a break from episode two, but we got it now. I found it funny Lennie James said he didn’t film this episode until after all the first eight, so he never knew why he said or did any of the things he did. Well neither did we, so it was interesting to see how Morgan got where he is.

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You know how Rick met up with Morgan again in season three and Morgan was in a very bad place? This episode showed he was in that place for a long time. Morgan believed he had to “clear” everything. Basically he had to kill everything, even people, because they’re going to die any way. He comes across a father and son in the woods and just kills them.

Morgan talks to himself, likes killing, and isn’t in the right mindset. So when he comes across a cabin in the woods with a goat outside, he didn’t expect a guy with a stick to outwit him. This is when we meet Eastman, the vegetarian, solar power using, goat cheese-making, loner in the woods. He believes all life is precious and therefore keeps Morgan prisoner rather than killing him.

You see, Eastman learned the art of “Aikido” or stick wielding. Aikido also means not to kill, which we know is Morgan’s mantra.

During his stay there Eastman tells Morgan about his life, his goat Tabatha, and tries to convert him from his crazy-ways and become peaceful. Turns out Eastman never locked the cell Morgan was in and when Morgan gets out, he tries to kill Eastman. Eastman gives him the choice of leaving or sleeping on his couch. Instead Morgan goes back in his cell.

Overtime Eastman teaches Morgan his yoga-ways while telling him more about his life. Turns out he worked for the law and dealt with murderers constantly. There was this one guy who, despite being a psychotic murder, people found charming and gave him an easy pass. Eastman saw right through him and was able to get him locked up. Because of this, the guy finds Eastman’s house, and murders his family.

God I feel for Eastman.

He created the cell in his house to lock away the guy forever, but we assume he never went through with it.

In the end Eastman ends up getting bit because Morgan froze. To me his death was pretty stupid and could have been avoided by stabbing the walker in the head with his stick or merely pulling Morgan back, rather than getting in between them. But whatever, from the beginning of the episode when we met Eastman I knew he was going to die.

Unfortunately, Tabitha also bit the dust, and seemed to get the biggest reaction out of the whole episode.

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Everything comes to a close. Eastman lost his family now he lost his goat, he got bit, but at least he was able to teach Morgan that lesson that all life is precious.

Seriously? How does someone believe that? Well, Eastman confesses he did lock away his family’s murder in the cell and starved him to death for 47 days. Eastman went to turn himself when he found out the world ended and decided to turn up a new leaf. Even though it’s completely understandable what he did and the guy deserved it.

Morgan’s backstory ends with him finding the train tracks to Terminus.

So instead of the episode just being a flashback, Morgan is actually telling the story to the wolf he DIDN’T KILL. Yeah, he’s tied up in a house and I guess Morgan thinks telling him his story will also give him a new meaning of life. But big surprise, he doesn’t care! And he tells Morgan he’s either going to die or get out and kill everyone. In the end it doesn’t matter because he got bit. He got bit Morgan, why are you keeping him alive? He’s basically dead. I don’t think your mantra should count with this one.

In the end I liked the episode and understand why the writer’s did it. I liked Eastman, although I didn’t believe in everything he did, but him dying wasn’t a big surprise. Sure it wasn’t the best episode, but it wasn’t bad.