AMC Fear the Walking Dead
Tonight is the final episode of Season 4 of Fear the Walking Dead. To call this season controversial would be an understatement. Some people love the new characters, and others have stopped watching completely. Still others are wondering what’s going to happen in the finale and if there will be any additional crossover with The Walking Dead.
This post will be updated with a live recap as the show airs. So keep refreshing the story to see the latest details about what happens.
The episode begins with a look at what happened to Ali. She’s racing from the hospital with zombies in pursuit (it’s not quite clear how she escaped.) She appears to be cornered on both sides of a street as walkers approach. She jumps into a building and locks a screen door behind her. We see her backing up as the walkers try to reach her. On the other side, she breaks open a car door window to get a walkie-talkie. But no one is answering. She’s calling to Morgan and June, and tells them she holed up in a post office overnight after escaping through the basement, and now she’s in a parking garage a couple miles south of the hospital.
She finds a news van (KXEY), which is pretty much perfect. She finds a news camera inside the van and manages to hotwire the vehicle. But next we see her in a police car… (OK, I looked down for a second and missed something.) She abandons the car and goes walking, rifle ready. And that’s when she sees Filthy Woman (yes, that’s AMC’s nickname for her officially) with Jimbo in Walker form.
FW says, “I don’t want to hurt you, I like you. You don’t make people weak.” She watched Ali’s interview. “You just gave them whatever it took to get their story.”
For some reason, no one ever wants to shoot FW (real name Martha.) Conveniently, Ali’s gun is empty when she turns to Martha to shoot after taking out a couple walkers, and she gets knocked out.
After the commercial break, Ali wakes up with June and Dorie. She’s been taken back onto the SWAT van. She tells them that Martha wanted her to deliver a message, but she didn’t hear it. “She delivered it anyway,” Dorie said. “She kinda made you a carrier pigeon.”
Martha left a video for Morgan. “I gave you so many chances to be strong, but you didn’t take any of them. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough. You’ll see me again…”
Seriously, I am wondering why no one killed her with all the chances they had. Rick would have, that’s for sure.
Now it’s night and everyone is gathered around a fire. Sarah, Wendell, Ali, June, Dorie, and Morgan and Alicia. Morgan is taking them to Alexandria. Morgan wants to stop at Polar Bear’s truck stop so they can pick up more boxes and drop them off on their way to Alexandria.
Dorie tells Morgan he believes he will run again. Morgan says it’s not running. “It’s just dying, John.” He says that Martha thinks the only way to be strong is by dying and turning into a walker, and he plans to change her mind because he “used to be her.” But this is something he has to do on his own, Morgan emphasizes. He drew a map to Alexandria and gave it to Dorie, because he has to face Martha alone.
Morgan is on a mission to save Martha because he sees himself in her. She tells him that she’s at mile marker 54, and he willingly goes to walk into the trap. (Morgan doesn’t seem as smart as he was in The Walking Dead universe.)
After the next commercial break, Luciana, Dorie, Al, Strand, Alicia, June, Wendell, and Sarah all show up at the Polar Bear gas station and fill up on supplies (including coffee!) Alicia finds a map, Al finds supplies for her guns, and they plan their next moves. Strand offers to let them all go back to the mansion, but they decide against it.
Dorie is rocking his cowboy hat, making him the “Will I Replace Rick on The Walking Dead?” character. (Some fans think there will be another crossover, but no one has confirmed this.)
Dorie tells an apologetic June that he knows who she is. “Doesn’t take a whole day to recognize sunshine.” She says that she knows who she is because of him. Awww. They pretty much are the sweetest couple, even though I’m still mad at her for abandoning him.
Back in Morgan’s life, he is at Mile 54 and finds Jim-the-Walker locked into a police car with one of Martha’s special messages on his face. Morgan lets him out and puts him out of his misery. He then finds Martha facedown in the dirt (an obvious trap, it seems.)
Morgan touches her and she mumbles, “not yet.” Morgan says they can help her, and helps her into the police car while she mumbles “not yet” over and over. (One possible interpretation: she wanted to turn into a zombie before he found her, so she could kill him.) She is NOT happy.
It looks like Morgan is driving her back to the gas station for some reason. :-/ He tells John that he’s bringing her back. “Where are you taking me?” she asks. He’s taking her to Mississippi.
They can’t really talk to each other (a bad connection), but I think Morgan’s making a big mistake taking her back to their gas station.
Al passes out as a bunch of walkers approach her and Alicia barely saves her. I’m wondering if Martha poisoned some of the supplies at the gas station, or maybe Al is just still weak from her previous illness. I’m suspicious because of the comment Sarah made about the coffee being too sweet. Others think Al might have been bitten:
They would have checked her over for bite wounds when they found her, wouldn’t they? #FearTWD
On their drive, Martha tells Morgan that her husband’s name was Hank. She tells him what happened to them. Someone weaving in the traffic hit them and her husband needed her to be strong for him, but she wasn’t. Morgan tells her that wasn’t true.
June radios Morgan and tells her that Al got sick, but they’re all sick, not just Al. (This is exactly what I thought.)
And as should have been predictable to everyone on the show, Martha fakes being sick so she can force Morgan to crash and take over. Morgan was trying to pay forward what was done for him, but Martha is not the same type of person as Morgan.
Awwww, now Martha is writing on Morgan’s face. Great. :(
Morgan wakes up to a note on his face: “I Lose People. I Lose Myself.” Martha has put a spike in his leg and she has a giant walker bite in her chest. “I made sure you couldn’t help. Now you either kill me or I kill you.”
Morgan insists he doesn’t kill. But would he really rather die by a walker named Martha?
Martha says that Morgan’s scared that if his friends die, he’ll become what he used to be. But Morgan says he looked for her because she needed help. “I have been where you are.” But Martha insists he always will be there unless he decided to be strong. Martha’s logic is all kinds of messed up.
OK, back at the gas station, everyone is realllly sick. And it looks like all the bottled water is contaminated. (Martha did that, if you recall.) The station is surrounded by zombies (for some reason) trying to get in, and they’re stuck inside without water. All the seals on the water were broken. “Someone poisoned us,” June announces. (Charlie is also looking really sick, and Alicia is looking out for her as best she can.)
On the radio, June tells Morgan that Martha poisoned the water. “That’s what you get for helping me,” Martha said. “You made them weak.” She’s not going to tell him what she used because there’s nothing … Oh wait, she does tell him. She used antifreeze. :(
“They are going to die,” Martha said. “And there is nothing you can do.”
Morgan almost chokes Martha to death and for some reason that would make him regress. I think we learned on Walking Dead that if he kills, he runs a danger of just going overboard and going crazy. He pulls the spike out of his leg and is determined to help his friends. Morgan handcuffs Martha to the police car while she screams, mad that she won’t kill anyone else when she turns, and he walks off.
This is a strange episode.
By the way, online sources are telling me that the treatment and antidote for antifreeze poisoning is fomepizole (Antizol) or ethanol (but best administered in a hospital.) Or this:
Dialysis might be needed if too much damage happened. Not really possible in this world.
After the commercial break, Ali gets out her camera and watches footage on it. I’m not sure what she’s watching. Seems to be a mom and her kids. She’s now watching footage of a man hugging his baby.
Al and her tapes #FearTWD
Morgan is trying to walk to the gas station, but with that spike wound in his leg it’s really tough to do and he has a long way to go. Al gets on the radio and calls for Morgan. “If you’re out there, you tell her I’m coming for her…”
Morgan finds the strength to keep going when he hears her on the radio, and for the first time they can hear him. “It’s antifreeze,” he tells them. June tells them the antidote is ethanol (she used to be a nurse, if you recall.) Sarah says there’s a tanker truck full of it crashed outside.
I’m enjoying a lot of this episode, I just wish there was a different villain. Her descent into madness is a little tough to buy, and Alicia’s previous unwillingness to kill her was also tough to believe. Morgan makes sense, considering his past and how the last time he killed, he went insane again for a while afterward. But everyone else being so slow about killing her in previous episodes, that part was tough to believe.
They manage to gather up enough strength to fight the zombies outside the gas station, and Strand makes his way to the truck as the walkers pour into the station en masse. Strand’s having trouble getting the ethanol out of the truck. Ali implements her machine gun SWAT armory and takes out a bunch of walkers. YES! But she also poked holes in the ethanol truck in the process and now all the life-saving ethanol is pouring onto the ground.
Next we cut to everyone inside the gas station again, looking like they’re passed. June tells him they lost the ethanol and THIS MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. Why didn’t they get buckets? Or get cups or cup their hands and drink some? I’m really really confused right now. REALLY CONFUSED.
How much ethanol did they need? Couldn’t Luciana run up there with a cup, when it was spilling out? #FearTWD
Morgan is devastated. “I can’t lose you. I can’t lose any of you.”
This makes as much sense as when Alicia and Nick just sat in the car outside the stadium rather than driving away as the zombies approached them. :-/ Morgan is sad and says he’s not strong enough not to regress into a killer if all his friends die. :(
Maggie has recorded a goodbye video and asks whoever finds the tapes to keep them safe. “Make sure they survive. Make sure they matter.”
Everyone is passed out at the gas station, barely alive. Morgan shows up and takes out all the walkers singlehandedly, even with that crazy spike wound in his leg.
Morgan points out that ethanol is just a fancy word for alcohol, so he made a stop along the way. He’s got an Argie’s Ale truck full of Jimbo’s beer, and his beer saved all their lives. Poetic. :) It looks like everyone will live!
Strand is happy that he has a friend to share a beer with now, and Charlie is happily drinking beer too.
Morgan washes Martha’s dumb message off his face, now that his friends will live. He returns to where he left Martha. In walker form, she pulled her arm off the car and is now stumbling along the road. Morgan “saves” her by killing her, and builds a grave of stones over her body, which is way nicer than she deserved.
Morgan then announces that they are NOT going to Alexandria after all. :( “At least I’m not. That woman, she was the way she was because nobody stopped to help her when she needed it… And there are still more people like her out there…”
Morgan finds where Polar Bear got his supplies to help people. “It used to be a denim factory,” Morgan says. “He set up shop here because, look at it. So out of the way…”
Morgan plans to stay and continue Polar Bear’s work of helping other people and leaving boxes. But Alicia wants to also do what her mom did and build the factory into something more. Ali says they can find people from the interviews on her tape, and start by helping them.
So it looks like the plan is to help people by delivering supplies and taking people in. And they are NOT returning to Alexandria. It’s a good group and an interesting future storyline. Personally, I’m looking forward to Season 5 and where they go from here.