Fear the Walking Dead: What’s Your Story?

First Aired April 15th, 2018

John (played by Garret Dillahunt) camps alone and hears a noise; unsure if it’s a person he engages in a one-sided conversation after not talking for so long. A walker appears and he shoots it and he spots Morgan (played by Lennie James).

After leaving the others Morgan lived alone in the Scavengers base although several people including Carol (played by Melissa McBride) and Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln) attempt to talk him into coming back saying he can’t live without others, eventually Morgan leaves and strikes out on his own. Alternating between driving and walking, Morgan finds an injured man in a car but he refuses any help or medicine and demands to be left alone, and eventually finds his way to John.

While John is thrilled for some human companionship Morgan flatly refuses any hospitality. John asks if Morgan found a woman carrying a gun identical to his but Morgan hadn’t, after enough prodding Morgan spends the night in John’s car but leaves before he wakes up. Morgan finds a campsite and is knocked out by Leland (played by Clint James), John appears to save him but is captured by Leland’s men. A woman named Al, short for Althea (played by Maggie Grace) pulls up in an armored truck and she offers them food in exchange for Morgan and John (and to not use her considerable arsenal).

It seemed like too much having the finale of The Walking Dead air right before the Fear the Walking Dead premiere but now it makes sense. The main story of the premiere isn’t about the characters in Fear but Morgan’s story as he transitions from one show to the other. The montage of cameos was a fun scene, every time someone knocked it was exciting to see what characters would make an appearance. It also made sense to cover Morgan’s journey right away because his main story this season is going to be how he adjusts to new people. Rick’s was right in that as hard as Morgan tried he can’t not be around people, and so far John seems like a compelling character (almost like Morgan was before he became hardened by the world). Since all the new main characters introduced in season three were killed it makes sense to introduce new characters. Although if this season goes the same way we’ll be saying goodbye to them sooner rather than later.

Al says that because she rescued them, Morgan and John now owe her and reveals she was a journalist. Using her camera she conducts interviews with them both asking about their life stories, for John it’s about his wife Laura whom he hasn’t seen for a long time. Morgan is less willing to be interviewed and tries to leave, before he can Leland and his men ambush them and Al hoping to steal her truck. Morgan and John get the upper hand and take out a few men, Leland overpowers Al but she escapes and he gets bitten by a snake searching for the keys to the truck. Morgan fights one of Leland’s men on the roof of a trailer and he nearly falls off into a group of walkers. Morgan saves him but the man attacks, they fall of the roof of the trailer and the man is devoured, Morgan uses a grenade to kill the walkers. While Morgan and John kill other walkers Al takes back her truck as Leland gets devoured and uses her machine guns to wipe out the walkers in seconds. Morgan finally agrees to be interviewed by Al but stops when it gets too personal.

Al being a journalist could be a fun side story for her character, perhaps an episode of her covering the start of the plaque as a reporter. Morgan seemed annoyed about the interviews but if the price for her saving your life is talking about yourself that’s a pretty good deal. Leland and his group was basically a plot device to bond Al, John and Morgan; what better way to build trust then fighting off bad guys? One interesting thing to point out is that Morgan didn’t directly kill anyone, and the one time he tried to save a bad guy it backfired. This might harm his mental health more because he’s trying not to revert to his cold blooded self but others clearly don’t share that sentiment. It’s a story we’ve seen with Morgan before but maybe it’ll play out differently with these new people, and once he regains himself he’ll go back to Rick and the others. Unless Morgan dies there’s no way he doesn’t rejoin them at some point given how much history there is between them.

Morgan goes off on his own again but his leg is injured from the fight, two walkers nearly kill him but John saves him and says he was wrong about wanting to be alone. They regroup with Al (who agrees to help him search for Laura) but Morgan only wants to stay with them while his leg heals. On the road they spot an injured woman who turns out to be Alicia (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey) who says ‘bad people’ are around so they stop to help her. Alicia then has her brother Nick (played by Frank Dillane), Strand (played by Colman Domingo) and his girlfriend Luciana (played by (Danay Garcia) ambush them and take their weapons.

Morgan has temporarily accepted new people into his life, but despite his new outlook on life it’s clear he’s warming up to them a little. It doesn’t look like it will be that easy to get along with Alicia, Nick, Luciana and Strand. This last scene poses so many questions; are there actually bad people and given how the last season ended how did they all get reunited? With Morgan and these new characters dominating the premiere they’re now established characters so the next few episodes will likely explore that. Alicia could have been lying but there hasn’t been a group of antagonists on this show yet in the vein of the Saviors and that would be fun to see.

Quotes/Thoughts

“I lose people and then I lose myself.”

Morgan has gone back to his motto of not killing people and so far it’s not doing him much favors, let’s see how long it lasts or if it causes problems like before.

“In this world we’re always on our own.”

So the timeline in Fear matches up with The Walking Dead, I have to say Alicia, Nick and the others had a somewhat easier time than Rick and his group in terms of what they’ve had to deal with.

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