With Carl, she takes on the identity of a protector and a friend, enabling him to safely work through some of the issues that he has been dealing with since he was forced to put a bullet through the skull of his recently deceased mother. He is able to proactively protect the memory of the family he no longer has, and Michonne proves that she’s not just out for herself, risking life and limb to help Carl get a picture of his mother and father from a local restaurant crawling with the undead. The two make a wounded pair, but through their shared experience and the glimmers of humanity – and horrible decorative taste – that Michonne shows, they draw a little closer.
Which is good news, because when Morgan wakes up we get a stark reminder of what happens when someone is left alone in this new world. After first attacking Rick, Morgan begs to be shot, lacking the courage to end his own life. And why? Because though he doesn’t wish to go on, he does feel as though he is enslaved to the act of killing the dead, perhaps as a kind of grim penance for what happened to his son. Rick had told Morgan to shoot the zombie that had once been his wife, but Morgan was too attached to the old world to go through with it. It is a sick karmic payback, then, that it is she who kills his son.
Similarly, he blames Rick for his current situation, reminding him of the walkie talkie he turned on each morning at dawn, never hearing from Rick the way that he had been promised. Rick forgot about the world around him when he found his family, and though he did try once, he was already too far out for the walkies to work. It’s a heartrending scene, delivering on three seasons of unspoken and half-forgotten tension, but all the more powerful because of it.
Rick begs Morgan to come to the prison with them, offering safety and a new life among the living, but Morgan can see the straits Rick must be in by the number of guns he is taking. Morgan has given up on being able to live a normal life, and resigns himself to his life among the ruins. Carl apologizes for shooting him, but Morgan is quick to admonish the boy never to apologize.
Before they ride off, there is a final moment between Michonne and Rick. She says the she knows he sees things, but then tells him not to worry, that she used to talk to her boyfriend. Things aren’t ok, they aren’t ok, but that is ok. It’s just something that happens out here, and maybe it is better than the alternative, Morgan and his obsessive hunt to clear the world, his conscience, his soul. It’s a shared experience, and a connection that let’s Rick know that in spite of the uneasy position he has with Michonne in terms of her place in their group, she understands him on a level he may need more than ever now.
It’s a beautiful moment, and a real show of growth from everyone involved. It’s almost the perfect coda to a graceful story, told beautifully and scripted and acted meticulously. However, I say it is almost perfect, because the real closing shot is where the true perfection comes in. On the way back to the prison they find the partially devoured corpse of that twice rebuffed hitchhiker. The car drives by, just as it did before, but then reverses so they can pick up the backpack still laden with supplies.
It’s a darkly comic moment, and a great capper to the short story nature of the episode. It’s a scene that seals the theme of the episode, driving home the theme not just on a narrative level, but a character level. Everyone appreciates the company of the living a little bit more, and they trust one another more as well, but there is no time to lose your mind over the dead, the ones you failed to save. Just pick up the pieces and keep on moving forward.
I know that we still have a big confrontation with The Governor yet to come, but I am hoping that The Walking Dead takes its cues for future episodes from this one, and settles into a long-form storytelling mode comprised of small, stunning stories like this.
