I saw this completely differently than you. Eastman was not 'a dick'; he was attempting to come to grips with what had happened in his life - the senseless death of his family at the hands of a killer - and he was trying to make peace with what he did to that man after he'd caught him. He'd finally found an inner peace. No, it didn't fit in the current world, but he died at peace with himself, which was probably all he wanted.

Why did he want Morgan to leave the cabin and seek out others? Because Eastman had been living in isolation since what appears to be just after the apocalypse began...quite a long time to without speaking to anyone other than a goat. If you've ever lived in prolonged isolation, you would know just how torturous it could become over time. Eastman was right; taking chances on finding others would be far better than holing up in a secluded cottage for the rest of time. That would be a living death.

Looking at it all from Eastman's perspective, the only time he found any sort of peace was after he'd come to the realization that all life, to him, was precious. When they crossed paths, Morgan begged Eastman to kill him...so for Eastman to teach Morgan his philosophy only made sense. He was trying to help Morgan to not survive despite wanting to die...he was trying to help Morgan find peace. In such an f'd up world as the one that surrounded them, a few days of peace would probably outweigh months, or years, of a self-tortured existence.

Morgan's actions as they now stand - him secretly harbouring a member of the Wolves because he cannot accept killing - could endanger the entire community. I do agree that in such an instance, the philosophy of 'live and let live' just won't work when there are extremely violent people who are threatening lives. However, I understand where Morgan is coming from, and where Eastman was coming from. Not to say what Morgan is doing is right - of course it isn't, especially when he is hiding someone who is an obvious threat from the rest of the community.

But in the post-apocalyptic world, people who still do have empathy are needed, so long as they don't do anything to threaten others' safety, such as Morgan has done. The only hope for a world to come back from one of such extremes is to have some Morgans and Eastmans, so some inkling of moral balance can be kept. Without it, mankind will be doomed to killing itself off.

 

after watching the episode again my only complain is that I do not understand how someone who knows very well aikido as Eastman, who survived from a psycho-murder attack, who kicked Morgan's ass when he was outraged, can be bitten so stupidly by a walker...

I mean, instead of moving away Morgan from the walker, he could have bashed the walker head with his stick, saving both himself and Morgan... no, better moving him away, give shoulders to the walker and let bit by him -_-

 

I agree and want to add a couple things. While I think Morgan is still nuts,total pacifism is not healthy in this world. I dislike new Morgan but I'm looking forward to the conflict this will produce. Also , I think they did a much better job explaining Zen Morgan's motivations than "Kill the sick, after they cough and hugged on everyone and are in locked in cells in a totally different building" Carol.

 

I completely agree that Morgan's actions with the Wolf endanger the community, and are therefore wrong.

I'd like to point out though that having our current peaceful society is a relatively recent thing - throughout history people's lives were often brutal and short, and yet there have always been people preaching peace and pacifism as the proper way to live. People haven't changed in the ZA, even though society fell apart. There's no reason that our morality should therefore change, even if it does become a lot more definitive and quickly enforced given the harshness of our current circumstances.

 

Morgan is completely in the wrong in what he's doing, but the writers did a terrific job of explaining why he's doing it. Not so long ago, he was given a chance to change (by Eastman) and it worked out - now he wants to extend that same chance to the Wolf. He owes his sanity and inner peace to the principle of pacifism, so it's now clear why he won't kill. The problem is, I think the Wolf is truly evil, like Crighton Dallas Wilton, so Morgan's goal is misguided. Also, he is putting other people in danger by keeping the Wolf in Alexandria, whereas Eastman was only endangering himself (and the goat).
Or perhaps it could be argued that, in the world of the Walking Dead, simply letting a killer live puts other people in danger.

 

I do actually like New Morgan, after this episode. But I liked Eastman more. Shame he can't make a return.

 

This was without a doubt the worst episode of TWD I have ever seen.

This was 90 minutes of garbage. Very poor writing and little depth or substance in the episode. Tell me and show me why Morgan went crazy in the first place. I know it was because his wife ate his son, but show me. Show me what he did afterwards and how he made it to the rooftop in the town Rick, Mershan, and Carl found him in. Show me why he left the town Rick, Mershan, and Carl encountered him because he was set up nice.

The guy playing Eastman was not believable as that character. I know a lot of people liked him, but the guy has been a doofus in so many previous roles that he just wasn't believable as an Aikido expert. Lame.

Lenny James was a great crazy man, he is a horrible ninja/stick man. Just horrible to watch him try to pull off what he is trying to. He gets killed Day 1 after leaving the Eastman camp.

The most interesting part of this episode was the goat.

After the episode was over I thought "Z Nation is better than this." And I hate Z Nation.

The more and more I think of Sundays episode the more and more pissed off I get. Was a waste of 90 minutes and did nothing to progress the show. No one needed to see this to understand where Morgan was at as a character. If Morgan deserves 90 minutes, so does Father Gabriel.

 

I take it you missed the 2 hour Beth a cappella special in Season 4.

 

The writers did a terrific job at nothing. Are you even watching the show?
Bad banter.
poor explanation,
unrealistic scenario,
failure to suspend disbelief,
copout ending,
... the list goes on.
... your discussion credit is null and void...

 

why did this need to be 90 minutes long? that's feature film-length. no way this was feature-film worthy.

just adding my two tarnished pennies here.

tabitha was the only thing i liked about this episode and she got short shrift.

 

Aikido does not mean "Not to Kill" or "all life is precious"
Its a message about unity, and spiritualism, but not a simple catchphrase that most nitwits would get, and there's NOTHING in the philosophy that protects human life.

 

and while we're nitpicking the representation of Aikido, can i just say it's kind of insulting to suggest that anyone can so easily learn this discipline in such a short span? people train their whole lives to be physically and spiritually/psychologically proficient in martial arts.

i get it, suspension of disbelief and all, but it's stuff like this that takes credibility out of the show.

 

The Beth episode was a better episode.

 

I was thinking this too. They did not make Eastman seem like some dude who maybe took Aikido once a week at the community center, they made him out to be proficient in the practice. In which case blocking & redirecting the motion of an attacker should be automatic. Do you think we were supposed to think that on some level, maybe Eastman felt like he had achieved some level of atonement for his killing of his wife & child's murderer, by "rehabilitating" Morgan of his killing ways and teaching him Aikido, and maybe subconsciously he felt his earthly work here was done? Or do you think it was another screw up on the part of the writers, where they used a sneak attack where it didn't make sense to do so?

 

This. Completely.

 

Overall I really felt like this was a great episode that provided some necessary backstory and some valuable information about how Morgan came to be who he is. Morgans philosophy is going to create some very interesting conflicts very soon, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out.

That being said, I feel like this episode could have been better. I would have liked to have seen more than just this situation. How did he come to be in the building in Atlanta? I'd have loved to see how Duane was killed, but I can understand them skipping over that. It's been 5 years since Duane last made an appearance in TWD, which means they likely would have needed to find a new actor to play his character. The character that played Duane in episode 1 would be too old now to work with such a story line, given that he wouldn't have been more than 6 months or so older than he was in the first episode during his death. So although I feel that this would have made his backstory better, skipping this is understandable.

I would have loved to have seen more of his journey after leaving Eastman too. We know that he didn't go to Terminus because he saw the sign that Rick painted with "No Sanctuary", but he saw it months after the fact (judging by the vines growing all over it). Morgan was on Rick's trail for months. What happened during all this time? Obviously he kept working on his Aikido, but what else did he encounter? Did he meet other people, and if so, what happened? Did he have to get out of any tricky situations with walkers?

I feel like a better flow for this episode, in sticking with the 90 minute format, would have been more like using the first 15 minutes to show how he came to the building in Atlanta and what he did there, the next 45 minutes to go over his time with Eastman, and then the last 15 minutes to cover his pursuit of Rick and fill in the blanks between all of the flashes we got in season 5. Regardless, I did think that this was a great episode. The acting was top notch. The Eastman character is probably my favorite one time character in the shows history. Tabitha the Goat was awesome. I wish she would have survived. Morgan could have brought her with and learned how to make cheese.

 

This.
Eastman said that he achieved a "peace level" when he understood the "every life is precious" philosophy, then he was just trying to survive in the ZA.
And it's not the first time on this season that someone dies or it's bitten by walkers in a stupid way...

 

I take it you also wouldn't find Michonne's transforming from being a professional woman to a katana master after finding one in a secondhand store to be believable either then?

 

yeah, Michonne has always bothered me for that reason.

i have a lot of problems with the warrior mystique in this show in general. it would be so much more interesting if they were sloppy killers (though this many seasons in, they could be getting proficient). at least Rick and Shane had a modicum of gun training at the beginning and Daryl was an expert hunter. the rest of them...eh....

i find the use of knives to be particularly silly: walkers' heads are apparently made of soft cheese. they make it so easy to penetrate their skulls with a hand thrust. they could at least do it through the eye socket or the base where there are holes (they sometimes do, but there's way too many straight shots to the crown). it's not that easy to do in real life ~ especially for women who weigh all of 90 pounds.

 

Why would Morgan go to the trouble of killing and burning walkers , yet not burn the two humans that he'd killed . Why wouldn't he stab him through the head therefore leaving him to come back and bite Eastman . Why would he sit in a cell for days without trying the door . How could he become an Aikido expert in 2 days .