The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 13 Review

The Walking Dead

Bury Me Here

Season 7 Episode 13 Review

**SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW, EPISODE AND COMICS FOLLOW, 

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK**

Ever since the second half of the season began, it's focused on Rick gathering other communities to go to war against Negan and the Saviors.  Alexandria, The Hilltop and the Dumpster Crew are all on board, but it's been King Ezekiel's the Kingdom that has restrained from entering the war, even though they're also under Negan's ruling thumb.  That all changes today, as at the end of the episode, Ezekiel says he's ready for war.  What happened that led up to this dramatic one eighty?

At the beginning of the episode, we see several members of the Kingdom delicately laying a cantaloupe on the back of a truck, handing it with the utmost of care.  There's no hint as to why they're doing this, but I'm sure they'll reveal it later in the episode.

Carol is having nightmares, and wakes up in the morning and sets out for the Kingdom, killing several Walkers with a One Way street sign that visually impresses young Benjamin, Morgan's protege.  She visits Morgan and asks if something happened to Alexandria, because she has a feeling Daryl was lying to her.  Morgan answers by not answering, but also volunteers to go with her to Alexandria.  She knows something is wrong, and leaves.  Benjamin runs into her as she's leaving, and he wants to go with Carol not to protect her, but to learn how to really kill Walkers.  Carol, still in her solo attitude, tells him no and to go do his work, which is to accompany Ezekiel and others on a Savior supply drop.

While she heads back to her home, she's followed by a shadowy figure, who turns out to be Richard.  He walks down the street and begins digging a hole while looking at her young daughter's backpack.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel is on a porch with SHIVA SHIVA SHIVA IS THERE HE IS SO CUTE AND AMAZING AND I WANT HER SO BADLY when a Kingdom citizen tries to talk to him, but is fearful of Shiva.  HOW can you be fearful of such a beautiful, majestic, godly, ethereal creature?  I would so be laying next to her petting her all the time.  Anyway, she says there's some problems with the garden or something I'm not really paying attention because SHIVA IS IN THE SCENE THERE'S SHIVA SO CUTE SO CUTE, but she does end with "I think I just pissed myself," which I found very funny.

Back at Morgan's place, Benjamin arrives with a housewarming present: a painting from a restaurant he raided, with a fancy fame made by a certain girl in town.  Morgan presses Benjamin on who the girl is, and he sheepishly avoids the question.  It's so cute how much Benjamin is seen in this episode - and how he's so excited about the future, possibly having a new love interest, and being trained by the great Morgan - I sense a very long, happy life for the lovable scamp.

Ezekiel, Richard, Jerry (my new wannabe bff), Morgan, Benjamin and some others load the truck with some cantaloupes (getting closer to finding out why they only had one cantaloupe in the beginning) and sets out to meet the Saviors. 

On the road they're stopped by a row of shopping carts shaped like an arrow, and they follow it to a makeshift grave with a handmade tombstone reading "Bury Me Here," and Ezekiel comments that some people are too insane for this world.  This coming from a man with a pet tiger, calls himself King and speaks in Shakespearean lore. 

They arrive late at the dropoff, which upsets the Saviors, and they're even more upset when they only count eleven cantaloupes, when there should've been twelve.  Ezekiel claims he counted them himself before leaving, but there is indeed just eleven cantaloupes.  The Saviors demand their guns, and the long-haired Savior who constantly beat on Richard before pulls a gun to his head, but instead of shooting him he shoots young Benjamin instead.  The Saviors demand the other cantaloupe be brought to them tomorrow, and the Kingdom soldiers frantically drive Benjamin to safety.

They end up at Carol's place, where young Benjamin - who whispers to Morgan the mantra he once told him - dies on her kitchen table.  This causes something inside Morgan to snap, and he walks the street in despair, thinking back to Duane and everything that happened before, and he contemplates killing himself at the makeshift grave.  Instead, he kicks a box and finds the missing cantaloupe, and puts the pieces together.

He visits Richard and looks about ready to kill him, when Richard comes clean.  He tells Morgan he hid the cantaloupe in hopes of having the Saviors kill him and cause Ezekiel to go to war, but instead it was Benjamin who took the bullet.  He tells Morgan that he had a wife and daughter who died because he didn't take action, and he won't do that again, even if it costs him his life.  He then tells Morgan that he either needs to kill, or kill himself.

We now see the Kingdom soldiers loading the one cantaloupe we saw at the beginning of the episode, and they go off to the drop point.  The Saviors are surprised to find the kid died, and after Richard delivers the last cantaloupe, Morgan sneaks up behind him, hits him with his staff and literally chokes him to death with his bare hands.  Ezekiel and the others are shocked, and Morgan tells them Richard was the reason why Benjamin died, and tells the Saviors that Richard was planning on fighting them, and so he had to be taken care of.  Morgan tells Ezekiel to leave him, and he drags Richard's body to the makeshift grave and buries him there along with his daughter's backpack.

Before heading back to the Kingdom, Morgan stops at Carol's place and tells her everything that's happened - Negan killing Glenn and Abraham, then Spencer and Olivia, and that the Saviors now control Alexandria.  Morgan then tells her he's going to kill every last one of them and leaves.  Carol goes to the Kingdom where she tells Ezekiel that they need to fight, and he readily agrees.  The episode ends with Morgan sharpening his staff into a spear.

With only a few episodes left until the finale, it's time to amp things up, and they did so in a huge way this episode.  We've lost two supporting characters that we never really cared for, but that was the spark to ignite the Kingdom's war with Negan, so one cantaloupe was all that was needed.  Carol has finally snapped out of her funk and is prepared to fight, but not in a kamikaze fashion like Daryl feared.

However, the episode MVP is Lenny James, who plays Morgan.  We saw Morgan in the very first episode with his son, and they tell Rick what happened since he was in a coma.  We know that his wife turned, and we see him unable to shoot her.  He appears again in the third season, now a complete madman after his Walker wife bit his son and turned him, and he now has nothing to lose.  Then he meets pacifist Eastman who teaches him nonviolence, and reunites with Rick with the new mantra that all life is precious.  Yet, through everything, we could see he still struggled with the events of the past, and it's the death of his young protege that caused him to revert to his crazed nature and turn into a one-man killing machine.  James gives another commanding performance, and it shows again the caliber of his ability to draw you in and not make it feel forced or contrived, but as a struggle he had been dealing with ever since the beginning.

Now there's only three episodes left, and it looks like it'll only get crazier from here.

The Score: A+