Warning: Major spoilers ahead!
Did you want Andrea, Daryl, the Governor, and Merle in this episode? Well, too bad because this whole episode is totally devoted to Rick venturing back to his home town! As exciting as life in the prison is, I think a journey home needs an entire 60 minutes to portray and prison life can wait until next week.
This episode starts off with Michonne, Rick, and Carl driving down the road when they encounter a survivor. Michone speeds up and passes him and leaves him begging in the road. They pull up to some cars and Michonne gets the car stuck. Walkers surround the car but Rick dispatches them. Rick tries to teach Carl about getting a car unstuck and he retorts with cynical remarks about taking Michonne with them. Rick explains that he doesn’t want to leave her at the prison alone with Merle and that they both have “common interests”. The survivor from before catches up to them but with the car unstuck, they drive away.
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They pull up to their old town and visit the old police station Rick worked at. The police station is gun-less and Michonne questions Rick’s insight on finding guns. Rick finally asks her if he has a problem with his idea of looking at local bars and liquor stores for guns and she says no, with an expression that makes her seem like she’s finally conceding to his ruling.
Walking through town, they come across signs and blockades put up. Rick wants to get in and get out with his search of guns while Michonne appears hesitant once again. A walker appears behind them that is shot by an armed sniper on a roof. He tells them to drop their weapons and leave but Rick tells Carl to run while Michonne tries to get up to the roof. Carl manages to incapacitate the shooter. The shooter turns out to be Morgan, the man who helped Rick after he escaped the hospital.
Rick and Michonne speculate on what to do about Morgan and whether or not his son is inside one of the buildings. Michonne saves Rick before stepping onto a couple of booby traps but they manage to get him back inside a fully stocked arsenal. Rick points out that this wasn’t all in the police station and that he had to have gotten it somewhere. Rick looks through the guns and finds the walkie-talkie that he gave to Morgan before he left for Atlanta. Rick tells them that they are to wait for him to wake up before taking the guns and leaving. Michonne says he’s dangerous but Rick defends him and tells her he’s not crazy.
Carl finds a map that Morgan drew of the town and Rick asks him if he wanted to come to see their old house. Carl just says that he “wanted to come” with no further explanation given. He wants to go on a run for a crib for lil’ ass kicker Judith but Rick will only let him go if Michonne goes with him. They leave and Carl says that she doesn’t really have to come with him and that he can handle it. Michonne, of course, still goes with him and helps assassinate some of the walkers in the way. Carl runs ahead of her but Michonne catches up and tells him he passed the baby place. Carl tells her that he’s getting Judith something else first.
Rick watches over Morgan while he’s out and starts talking to him. Morgan finally wakes up and reaches for a weapon he had stashed under his mattress. Rick hears a noise and Morgan lunges at him. Rick tries to calm him down after some tussling but Morgan manages to stab him. Rick finally points his gun at Morgan’s head where Morgan exclaims “Kill me!” It’s apparent that Morgan just wants to get out of this crazy walker-filled world. As soon as Rick pulls out the walkie-talkie, Morgan seems to remember everything. He rambles about how he never heard from Rick on the radio but Rick explains that he had to look after a group and got pushed farther and farther away from Morgan. Morgan asks about Rick and his family and Morgan starts talking about how his family had a worse fate: the zombified wife of Morgan attacked Duane, Morgan’s son, and he tells Rick that soon, his son will be dead too. He goes back into crazy talk and says that both the good and bad people will all die but the weak have already inhabited the Earth.
Carl finds a locked building full of walkers. Michonne tells him that he can’t stop her from helping him and, true to her word, creates diversions with rats in cages to distract the group of walkers. Michonne kills one of the stray walkers before it munches on Carl’s leg but they soon become over-run by the zombie crowd. Carl drops a picture frame and tells her they need to go back for it. Michonne finally metaphorical knocks some sense into Carl and tells him to wait. She goes back in off-camera for Carl’s picture but returns with some weird rainbow cat sculpture, saying it was “too damn gorgeous” to leave behind.
Rick wants to take Morgan back with him, exclaiming that he just needs time to get better at the prison. Morgan realizes that that huge amount of guns wouldn’t be needed unless someone wanted to take something from them. Rick says that they’ll win, without going into any detail about the Governor or the imminent war. Morgan tells him to take the guns and says all he needs to do is “clear”.
Rick meets up with Carl and Michonne and passes Morgan on their way out of town. Carl apologizes for shooting Morgan but Morgan tells him to never be sorry. Carl tells his dad that Michonne is one of them and that everything went okay. Michonne approaches Rick and asks him if he sees anything. She tells him that she use to talk to her dead boyfriend and that “just happens”. They leave town and catch a glimpse of Morgan moving walker bodies.
You could see an obvious bond between Rick and Michonne and you never know, she might just get to stay with Rick and the group at the prison. I really like how there’s been a couple of episodes fully devoted to just one adventure in the post apocalyptic world. It breaks up the back and forth confusion of prison life and Woodbury life. Even so, I’m still pretty excited to see what shenanigans the group gets into next week when it looks like Rick and the Governor will finally confront each other.
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Written by Guest Contributor: missvalentine
