What I’m Watching: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead: Season 6, Episode 4 “Here’s Not Here” (B+)

I smiled when I started watching this episode after writing my review of the most recent hour of “The Leftovers” and lamenting the fact that it often features segmented plotlines with characters featured intermittently and sometimes not seen for episodes at a time. This show does that more than any other, rivaling even “Lost” in its heyday. I wasn’t so thrilled at first at the notion of Morgan as the central character of this episode, but this turned out to be an informative, dynamic telling of his transformation from frenzied madman to peace warrior. His obsession with clearing and his readiness to kill anyone around him was quelled considerably by the strangely calm cabin dweller Eastman, who hit him with a stick and put him in a cage to give him some time to think about what he had become. I’ve always been impressed with John Carroll Lynch, who made the most of brief roles in films like “Shutter Island” and “Zodiac,” and he was terrific here as the forensic psychiatrist whose family was murdered by a man he knew was evil. He had some superb lines, like “You killed a lot of people – did you save anyone?” and “You stay or you go, those are choices. I will not allow you to kill me.” He made a real mark on Morgan, who is now choosing to keep Alpha Wolf alive even though he has promised to live v his own immoral code and kill everyone if he escapes, which calls into question how legitimate this idea of valuing all life really is.