I’ve gathered, and for me that’s a negative.
That was Morgan’s point when he told Eastman “you are good at deflecting”. Morgan didn’t entirely buy his response at that time.
Indeed, but testosterone poisoned red necks do not co operate with other groups.
Outsiders reinforcing Alexandria would provide a better life for many people.
I liked it a lot. One of their best hours, actually.
Annoyed we did not find out about Glenn, but whatevs. He’s alive and we’ll find out…next week?
Indeed, which is why psychopaths like the Wolves shouldn’t really have survived as long as they have. They’re kind of like the Reavers from Firefly - insanely (seemingly compulsively) violent and irrational, and yet oddly capable of the necessary cooperative strategies to last long enough to pose an ongoing threat to the main characters.
Judging by the teaser in the talking dead, Rick or Glen is out of contact and concidering how calmly Maggie is (not to mention she is still in Alex), I would tend to believe its Rick. But it does have Deanna reading a sign on one of the porches, R Monroe something something.
So yeah, I do believe this is going to be the ep we meet Jesus
Declan
It kind of was in the last episode where he was asked, I think by Rick, if he learned the Way of the Stick “before or after” (The Turn, implied). And he said after, by a cheese-maker. I thought this episode would be boring, but I sort of enjoyed the cheese-maker interlude, especially for the “What’s your name?” exchange.
Of course, this bullshit philosophy has no place in TWD world. Hopefully Morgan comes to realize that.
Well, we do know about Glen but only because of leaked information outside of the show that’s basically cheating:
The production photo that was posted in the 6.03 thread showing his character alive and well in a future episode
I would have preferred if they had called the episode “Blessed are the cheesemakers”.
I can’t quite work out why they had to have an extended episode on the most boring subject. Sure, give him an episode, but I fell asleep for 15 minutes and when I woke up, nothing had happened yet.
I file it under the episode I mark as the “Boring not dead”.
The zombies are a force of nature. Like the weather. It’s tough to make several seasons of plot about the weather.
I agree with you that it’s kind of silly that most of the survivors are small bands of what I call “wandering violent hobos” or walled communities of dysfunctional lunatics with a handful of “victims waiting to happen” still wandering the wilderness. Sure, cities might have become overrun with zombies very quickly. But I feel like less populated areas would have had more time to see what is happening and prepare. In fact, I would have liked to have seen more of that in Fear The Walking Dead.
But in the world of The Walking Dead the premise is that the zombie outbreak destroyed civilization. The only survivors are those willing to do unspeakable things to survive. But yeah. People aren’t going to survive long if every town goes to war with every other town with the survivors getting overrun by the zombies that are attracted to the fighting.
I guess I’m in the minority, I really enjoyed this episode. I’m happy to see and learn more about one of the first non-Rick characters in the show. We’ve known the backstories of almost every main character on this show for many seasons now. And most new characters are dead pretty quickly. The show really hasn’t explored any other character in awhile.
As for the episode itself, I was really disappointed that they killed Eastman. I’d have preferred to have had Morgan move on and be left as a viewer knowing there are still Eastmans in the world. Killing him just seemed like lazy writing. I also really enjoyed the scene where Eastman fessed up to starving the guy to death - that was wonderfully acted and powerful.
I agree. I’ve been hatin’ on Morgan’s no-killing BS as much as anyone, and I liked that this episode went back and at least showed us where it comes from and why it’s important to him. I think, though, if he had just moved on and Eastman was still out there, Morgan might have a little less fanatical adherence to the teachings…as it is, it’s basically his fault that Eastman died, and his guilt about that seems to drive most of his stupidity. Just like after he lost his son (arguably Morgan’s fault), he went full-metal stupid psychopath making sure all was “clear.” Then Eastman deflected him toward the way of the cheesemaker; and Morgan got him killed too and now is going full stupid on his peace, love, and deflection schtick.
I would think the character is being set up to be forced to either 1) decide whether he’s going to be responsible again for the death of someone close to him or straighten the fuck out and realize that the key is having the flexibility to do what needs to be done in the context of the situation or 2) face some kind of reckoning for the damage his emotionally-driven decisions have caused/will cause (the prisoner wolf, the wolf who got away with the gun, or the whole letting the guys live in that car who then were part of the Alexandria attack thing)…he’s got a lot to answer for already, actually.
Anyway, I thought it was a beautifully-filmed, well-acted episode that filled in a big hole in the story line (what happened between crazy Morgan in S3 and Mr. Zen on the way to Terminus in S5?). Sure, we left off with a couple of intense cliffhangers; but personally after the intensity so far this season I don’t mind a bit of tranquility. The intensity’s not over, I’m sure of it. A constant pace of non-stop conflict is exhausting and would eventually dull the sense of danger. I appreciate the change of pace.
But he’s not Crazy. He has a code now. Maybe it is an unrealistic code but he is sane. Eastman brought him back from crazy.
Eastman told him letting the guy starve was a mistake so why would Morgan repeat that mistake?
Yes, it might be a mistake to the outside observer but if he is following the path Eastman layed out for him, he is not going to let him Starve.
Morgan is trying to follow the ways of the cheesemaker. That creates conflict and conflict creates viewer interest. It’s not as if Morgan can attend a Zombie Anonymous meeting (which is not a bad idea for everyone who’s survived this long in this ZA). Hello. My name is Morgan and I must clear. 
Will Morgan adhere to Eastman’s teachings? Eastman had years of training as a forensic psychiatrist. Morgan has weeks of training, a stick, and memories of a goat.
I believe Morgan is the least of this wolves problems. He hasn’t met Daryl and Carol yet.
This particular Wolf is already dead - that was a zombie bite or atleast a significant wound (Wolfie talked about fever and shakes) - so all Morgan has to do is wait for him to turn.
All life is precious == I don’t actively kill - doesn;t mean I have to save you either - Morgan is prepared.
This is a regular conversational topic in my home, which perhaps gives you a rather skewed idea of what mealtime conversations are like around here.
It’s been two years. When I think about extremely traumatic events in my life, I can’t think of many that lasted all THAT long. Who was it that said that any civilized man is only three meals away from being a barbarian? I dunno how true this is, but I can easily name five people who’d gladly clock you upside the head for your can of beans if they’d skipped a day or two worth of meals.
How much hungrier would they have to be to simply kill you for it?
Charles Manson once convinced a bunch of dippy teenagers to kill for some extremely abstract reasons, and this wasn’t even in the zombie apocalypse; it was, in fact, in pretty prosperous times in Southern California.
I have trouble with zombie novels that postulate the rise of psycho religious doomsday cults two weeks after the dead rise, or even two months? Two YEARS? Pfffft. By this time, as Rick has stated, EVERYONE ALIVE has done some pretty extreme stuff to keep breathing.
…except of course, the Alexandrians, who don’t seem to understand the issue, despite the fact they were losing people on every supply raid outside the walls, which makes me wonder how many people they had to start with, and how stupid the ones indoors must be…
I do agree about the Wolves’ social model being unsustainable, though… which makes me wonder and wish we could get more information about their philosophy. Do they recruit? Or just murder everyone who comes along? And why the zombie horde in the truckyard if they’re just going to frontal-assault the place?
So one question on the wolf that was left locked-up. Maybe I didn’t understand the timing of that scene but…
a.) it was in Alexandria, right?
b.) two episodes ago we had the wolf attack on Alexandria which is where Morgan encountered this guy and subdued him. At the end of that episode, at the end of the attack itself, doesn’t Morgan walk-out and leave Alexandria?
c.) So… that means the scene at the end of this week’s episode was right before Morgan left Alexandria.
To me that says this guy has been left to die. The only person who knows about him (from what has been shown on t.v.) is Morgan and from the episode two weeks ago we know Morgan leaves immediately after the attack.
Did I miss something? Did Morgan not leave Alexandria after the attack?
MeanJoe
Some people believed at the end of that episode that Morgan had left Alexandria, but it definitely wasn’t explicit. All we see is him passing Carol on the road and heading towards a blurry, tree-filled background. Personally, I didn’t think he had left Alexandria. I think the passing of Carol and Morgan had a different symbolic meaning.
They are the smart ones, staying inside while the chumps go out looking for food to bring back.
Hated it. This episode moved the story along about a quarter of an inch. And it took 90 minutes to do it. And I didn’t give two shits about how Morgan became a martial arts expert.
I didn’t expect we’d get a resolution on Glenn (maybe that’s coming next week based on the scenes from next episode), but hoped to at least progress the story.
An episode that doesn’t feature Rick, Glenn, Daryl or Carol is doomed to fail.
(post shortened)
It’s possible that Carol and Morgan were on guard duty and simply walking the inside perimeter of Alexandria. They passed each other without saying a word. I assume Carol would have said something if Morgan was leaving Alexandria forever. (Morgan, look at the flowers. (What? Too soon?)) The following overhead shot of them walking in opposite directions could artistically show that Carol and Morgan are talking different paths thru life.