After a slow and somewhat boring episode last week, “The Walking Dead” did a better job keeping viewers engaged this week.

A plan has been made to organize an attack on Woodbury in retaliation to the Governor launched surprise attack that killed Axel. Unfortunately for Rick and company, that plan requires guns and ammo, something they are running low on.

This leads to Rick, Carl and Michonne to go on a supply run all the way back to the town Rick and Carl lived in before the zombie outbreak.

They soon find the town riddled with traps and make-shift barricades with sharp wooden sticks. After walking around for a bit, they are soon shot at by a man in full body armor. A small shoot-out starts, and Carl shoots the mysterious man knocking him unconscious from the force of the shot.

The man turns out to be Morgan, the same man who saved Rick in the first episode. However, Morgan is not the same man he was before Rick left. He is now a shell of what he use to be; crazy from the death of his son and the following solitude he was left in.

While this is happening, Carl and Michonne venture out to gather supplies. Carl has a different idea in mind and soon leaves Michonne to accomplish his own reasons for wanting to come.

This episode was a nice change from the usual set up. Instead of following two or more groups, the episode focused solely on Rick, Carl and Michonne. It kept the pacing even and easy to follow and again, showed an episode with little to no action can still be entertaining.

It was great to watch the dialogue between Rick and Morgan. Rick was finally the optimistic personality who kept his temper while Morgan was brash and had the doom and gloom personality.

A scene like this occurs in the comics, but much later in the series. Morgan is similar in that he also loses his son and his sanity, but his crazy is different. In the comics, his crazy is more of a calm crazy with long wide-eyed stares and losing consciousness like being lost in a long day dream.

So it’s refreshing to see this kind of crass madness to counter Rick’s sudden lapse into sanity. It’s also fun to see because the way Morgan acts is very similar to how Rick acted when he was having visions. It’s like Rick is looking into a mirror of what he was and what he will turn back into unless he gets ahold of his mind.

The episode ends on a great little conversation between Michonne and Rick as they both begin to understand each other a little more. This was a fun one-and-done episode to fill the 16 episode season. Instead of an episode trying to close loose ends, it presented a story that can stand on it’s own.

Now we can get back to the growing tension between the prison group and Woodbury and hopefully next episode will finally have the confrontation of Rick and the Governor.

 

Nathan can be reached at: [email protected]