The Walking Dead Episode 713 Recap: Bury Me Here

Carol still wants to know what happened in Alexandria. Instead Jared rolls his eyes and shoots young Morgan-protégé Benjamin in the gut. While he described Season 6 finale as “very claustrophobic descent into darkness”, Season 7’s last episode will be “more expansive – in tone and location and characters”. “That’s certainly a new aspect of Maggie that I’m enjoying seeing, given the circumstances she’s endured, the loss [for Enid, too]”. What’s even more disturbing in those stand-off scenes than the casual violence is the snide dismissal of the very idea of “kings”, and their mockery of anything resembling a plan for the future.

The Walking Dead Season 7 will return Sunday, March 17 with “The Other Side”, airing at 9:00 P.M. on AMC. Look at poor Olivia in the mid-season finale “Hearts Still Beating”. Alongside the fantastic Eastman episode with John Carroll Lynch, “Bury Me Here” is a jewel in the Morgan pages and also the show’s history. Are you surprised that Morgan’s mental break caused him to murder Richard? And Richard has prepared a roadblock for some reason, maybe it’s just to distract everyone while he hides the cantaloupe?

Thanks to the trap, the group is late to their scheduled drop with the Saviors, and Gavin is not pleased.

Oh, and look who’s there as well. The fact that no one stopped Morgan’s murderous streak is a puzzling state of affairs, but you can let it slide given the payoff. Will he decide to go there immediately in order to seize their weapons? Things have to be dealt with right now. I’m not looking for mystery or riddles to solve at this point in the season; I want Rick to find more guns, recruit the Junkyard Dogs and the Oceanside Riot Grrrls, and mount an epic assault on the Saviors. Richard mans up and tells Jared to do it. Gavin informs him that he has to “learn the stakes” now, and Ezekiel quickly promises twice the tribute within the hour. Daryl made a huge mistake in leaving Richard behind at the Kingdom after his plot to kill Carol, and while I appreciate that Richard had moved on to self-sacrifice rather than harming anyone else, the character was inevitably going to suffer for his attempts at betrayal.

Despite their best efforts to save him, the bullet severed Benjamin’s femoral artery. and he bled out.

Morgan takes the box with the melon to Richard and throws it in front of him. And you can see things click in Morgan’s head. Now, Richard sees this battle with the Saviors as his chance to right the cosmic scale. It’s also in this state of disarray that Morgan comes across the twelfth melon, and eventually puts the pieces of Richard’s plan together. It’s actually a pretty reasonable explanation. It’s telling that Morgan can barely distinguish between his mourning for Benjamin and the unresolved feelings he has about his own dead son, Dwayne. Richard wants to hand them over, and Ezekiel agrees, but he wants Jared to give Morgan back his fighting stick. Thankfully, Morgan retains enough presence to calm the Saviors down and do what needs to be done. A few final smashes of Richard’s head into the concrete, and Richard is dead. McBride called Carol’s self-imposed bubble not a means of escaping the world, but rather a way to regain her footing therein.

Afterwards, he stopped by Carol’s cottage to tell her Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Stephen Yeun) are dead, something Daryl refused to tell her episodes earlier. Morgan is literally sharpening his staff into a spear at the end; the symbolism is not lost. What would Eastman think of that, Morgan? And as sad as I am for Morgan being back in this dark place, I do love the twist of Morgan giving Richard exactly what he wanted in more ways than one.