Fear the Walking Dead: The Code

First Aired August 26th, 2018

After losing Alicia (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey), Morgan (played by Lennie James) waits out the storm inside of a truck and finds a box of supplies with a message to take whatever he needs. When the storm lets up he finds himself on a different road, he walks to a truck stop and is surprised to find himself in Mississippi.

Morgan hears a woman on a CB radio and talks to her, he finds out she left the supplies but they lose contact when he asks her name. While using the bathroom he’s held at gunpoint by a man in a wheelchair Wendell (played by Daryl Mitchell) but a woman, Sarah (played by Mo Collins) calms the situation. Sarah has been raiding warehouses and leaving the supplies for people to find and drove back to the truck stop not knowing Morgan was asleep in the back. Although Morgan intends to head back to Alexandria, when he hears how bad the storm was he wants to go back to check on Alicia and the others. Sarah and Wendell can’t risk the 400 mile trip but give Morgan supplies to help him get back. Heading out on foot Morgan hesitates and radios Sarah and Wendell, Morgan lies and says a bridge is out and asks if they can get him to Alexandria instead. They’re out making another drop so Morgan takes a car to meet them but can’t shake his guilt at leaving the others. While waiting Morgan spots a man with his hands tied in a hood being chased by walkers and saves him.

There’s never a ‘good’ scenario to be caught at gunpoint but getting caught while you’re on the toilet is especially bad not to mention embarrassing even in the end of times. Of course it all seems to work out for Morgan; he has supplies and even the possibility of a ride back to Alexandria. His decision to leave the others and head back to Alexandria was presented as selfish but was it really? Alicia left him in that storm and she and the others made it clear they didn’t want to go with him. Morgan bonded with them sure but they were together a very short amount of time and in the end he would have just turned around anyway to go to Alexandria. So when he finds himself almost halfway back with supplies and the promise of a ride he absolutely should take it, and he ended up saving someone else in the process. But as bad as he wanted to go back I knew he wouldn’t leave them like that. He left Alexandria the same way and sooner or later that guilt would drive Morgan to want to at least make sure they were okay.

Morgan takes the man, Jim (played by Aaron Stanford) with him and he says he was kidnapped by people who wanted the beer he makes in his brewery. Morgan offers Jim a place in Alexandria but when they find Sarah and Wendell they reveal themselves as Jim’s kidnappers. Sarah and Wendell stole the truck from the man who was making the deliveries and set off to Virginia set on reaching Alexandria. Jim urges Morgan to tell Sarah and Wendell where to go hoping to both stay alive by not getting on their bad side and finding a place to settle for himself, but Morgan refuses to put anyone else in danger. The truck gets stuck on the road so Sarah is forced to unload the supplies and Jim negotiates his way in Sarah by offering to brew all the beer she wants. Jim accidently knocks Morgan down a hill into a group of walkers, he manages to climb onto a car for safety. Sarah only offers to save him if Morgan if he tells them where to go, Morgan relents but nobody wants to risk themselves to save him. Sarah taunts Morgan that he’s no better than they are because he left the others to go back to Virginia and they drive off.

Sarah and Wendell aren’t the good Samaritans they appeared to be, but they’re not completely evil they just want a place to live and beer. Speaking of beer Jim could make a good living selling microbrew to people. People would love to have a beer after a bad day and during a zombie apocalypse there are lots of bad days, it’s easy to see why he wants to go to Alexandria. Morgan has the right instinct to want to protect his friends, Sarah and Wendell don’t seem the type to kill people but leaving someone surrounded by walkers is just as bad as killing them. Although why they decided to take Morgan at his word is beyond me since it was almost painfully obvious he was lying to them. Sarah cites Morgan ‘abandoning’ the others as reasoning for leaving him behind but it’s apples and oranges. Morgan just wanted to go home to Virginia and he didn’t know if Alicia and the others were in trouble or not.

Night falls and Morgan uses the radio to ask them to come back, musing that he doesn’t deserve to be saved for abandoning the others but wants the chance to do the right thing. He jumps from the car to the hill barely missing the walkers, he spots a knife to cut himself free and uses a road sign to kill the walkers. Morgan finds them the next day as they figured out he lied about the directions. Morgan negotiates that if they take him back to find the others they can be his ride to Virginia, but he first insists they leave supplies along the way in hopes it can help others.

Morgan feels guilty and uses that for some impressive improve fighting, he won’t leave another group behind and is resolved to go back to Texas. Even if Morgan does end up leaving he wouldn’t without at least saying goodbye otherwise building up his relationships with everyone was a waste of time. Teaming up with Sarah and Wendell feels like a situation that will only work until someone turns on the other. He does get them to leave supplies for other people but that doesn’t seem like the first step of them becoming better people.

Quotes/Thoughts

“We’re gonna infest this planet again, it’s what we do. An ice age couldn’t knock us out.”

Wendell refers to Sarah as his ‘twin’, it might just be an in-joke between them but they are very much alike.

“History is built on beer.”

The last scene shows us the woman from the radio (played by Tonya Pinkins) and her walker companion. It looks like she might also be involved with the supply drops but her hold on reality looks tenuous at best; she’ll be a problem.

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