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Monday, March 4, 2013

ZOMBIES: Notes on Walking Dead 'Clear' featuring an outstanding monologue

by Bowie Ibarra

This Sunday's 'The Walking Dead' episode, 'Clear', marked probably the first time I have been truly blown away by a performance from one of the characters.  Let's talk about the return of Morgan and about the rest of the episode.

THE SUPPLY RUN

Michone, Carl, and Rick hit the road in the Hyundai Death Dealer: Zombie Crusher Edition for a supply run.  And one of the first things they do is pass up a dude hiking.  Lesson Learned:  There's no making friends during the Zpoc.

Driving into town, they find the stores sacked, a stack of dead bodies, and then find a defensive setup reminiscent of the iron barricades that lined the shores at Normandy, except made out of sharp sticks and live birds and rats in cages near their center section. 

They get jumped by a dude on a roof, geared up for battle, who tries to run them off.  Rick and his team goes on the offensive, with Michone going legit ninja speed and getting to the roof with the quickness.  But she's too late, as the dude had moved off the roof. 

The dude makes it down to street level and is zeroing in on Rick when Carl blindsides him with a shot to the chest.  They discover the dude has a vest on, survived the shot, and is actually Morgan.

Morgan was the dude from season one that helped save Rick, but lost his own family.  He's been holed up in a room in this building, trying to keep his sanity by scribbling messages on the wall.  On the wall is a crude chalk street map that Carl follows to a familiar eatery to get a picture of his family for his baby sister to know what her family looked like.

When Morgan regains consciousness, he assaults Rick and stabs him, but is fended off.

Its then, as the two reminisce about their trials and tribulations in the zombie apocalypse that the most eloquent monologue is delivered from Morgan since Duane Jones set the standard with the 'Beakman's Diner' (25:05-28:05) monologue in 'Night of the Living Dead' 1968, or the scene with John, Billy, and Sarah (2:30-8:00) in 'Day of the Dead'. 

As it turns out, Morgan is an accomplished actor from the UK named Lennie James.  You might remember him as Sol from the movie 'Snatch'.  Morgan's 'Just Kill Me' monologue is the best performance the series has seen, in my opinion.

Michone follows Carl to the restaurant to recover the old family photo.  After some crude distractions are utilized to get the zeds moving, Carl gets his picture and Michone gets a souvenir statue.

Before the team leaves, Rick offer Morgan refuge at the prison and recruit him to his side.  Morgan sees the angle and wants no part of the armed conflict between the tribes.  He tells Rick he will be 'torn apart by teeth or bullets' if he continues on the path.

As the team packs the death dealer, Michone tells Rick she hallucinates about her boyfriend as well, so she knows where Rick is coming from.

As they drive home, they see Morgan burning the bodies of the zombies that get caught up in his traps.

The team leaves Morgan, and on the way home, pick up the gear the hitchhiker lost after succumbing to a zombie attack.

Or did he?

It was a great episode that I will remember as one of the best. 

If you need a little more zombie horror in your life, I hope you will consider checking out my zombie horror series, Down the Road, from Permuted Press.  The books are available in Kindle and paperback at great prices, so check them out here.

Thanks, and we'll see you next week.  Don't forget to follow the blog for this week's 'wild speculation'.

ZombieBloodFights.com will be live Tweeting again next Sunday (@wingback20).  Use the hashtag #ZBF to join in the conversation, which was basically just me last week.  So join me for some fun during commercials.

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BOWIE IBARRA is the author of the 'Down the Road' zombie horror series from Permuted Press and Simon and Schuster.  His latest zombie story, The Fall of Austin, tells the story of military, police, convicts, and citizens of the Texas capitol as they deal with the zpoc.  It is available in Kindle and Paperback.

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You can network with Bowie and read about his Tex-Mexploitation stories and check out his book trailers at his personal website, ZombieBloodFights.com.

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