What I Watched Today

(rambling, random thoughts & annoyingly detailed recaps from real time TV watching)

Fear the Walking Dead

We hear a voiceover of Morgan saying, if anyone is listening, what they’re doing isn’t just about doing right. They fought for the future for all of them. If you’re listening, just live.

Someone spray paints The End on a wall.

A dude in a cowboy hat sits near a fire in the woods, and adds tabaco sauce to some beans. (I find out later his name is Emile and he’s a bounty hunter, but they don’t really make this clear, since he never introduces himself.) He hears a noise, and asks if someone is there. A man runs out, and says, help, please. He falls. Emile goes over to him, and he says they’ve been after him for days. Emile asks, who? and he says he’s not really sure. Emile asks what his name is, and he says, Walter. Emile asks Walter if he’s hungry, and brings him by the fire. He tells Walter, eat. He’ll keep an open eye. Walter shoves beans in his mouth, and Emile says, beans were the first staple in the human diet. It’s only fitting we’d being enjoying them during our march toward the inevitable end. Walter wonders why they’re so good, and Emile motions him closer. He says, a chef never reveals his secrets. It’s his brother’s recipe, and his brother would kill him if he revealed it. Walter says, they’re mighty fine tasting beans. Emile’s dog barks, and Walter jumps up. Emile tells him, easy, and Walter says they’ve been on his ass since Laredo. Emile whacks Walter’s head off with a battle ax, and the dog goes over to lick it. Emile says, it’s tabasco. He picks a key up off the ground, puts Walter’s head in a picnic basket, and closes it. Walter’s name is written on the top.

Ginny calls on the radio, saying, you there? Emile asks, who wants to know? and she says she has a job for him. He says he has to wait for a delivery in Galveston, but she says he’ll burn lot of gas. She can make sure he’ll never want for it again. He asks who she’s looking for, and she says, Morgan Jones. He says, dead or alive? But she doesn’t know. He says she will soon, and he writes Morgan’s name on the lid of a box.   

Morgan – who is nearly unrecognizable with a beard – wakes up in a car. A zombie is shuffling around the car, and someone shoots it. Morgan ducks, and some people ride past on horses. He hears zombie noises, and gets out of the car. A zombie comes by, and gets close, but keeps moving. He says he’s right there, and it turns. He whacks it with his staff – or as I like to call it, his pokey stick – but he’s hurt and a little weak. He whacks it some more, making contact with its head, but when the zombie falls, he falls on top of it.  

Morgan climbs up a water tower, and almost falls. He pulls his hobo bag and stick up after he gets to the tower part. Inside is a fully furnished room, where he adds some supplies to his stash. He writes numbers on the inside flap on his bag, puts a couple bottles of water in it, and heads out.

He walks down an empty street, checking cars. He sees a gun in an overturned police car. He checks the clip. He looks inside a thrift store window. He sees zombies are headed his way, and says, sh*t. He runs to get his bag and pokey stick, but falls. He can’t get up, and they’re getting closer. They look at him, but keep going. A man appears, and kills the zombies. He’s about to whack Morgan, who says, wait. The man takes a closer look at Morgan, and says he’s never seen them walk away from a meal.

Inside, the man asks Morgan how long he’s looked like that, and Morgan says, about six weeks; he’s lost track of time. He tells the man that he needs to leave, but he says he was on tour in Afghanistan; he’s seen worse. Morgan says, the person who did this is still looking for him. He doesn’t want to get mixed up in this. The man says the smell is gangrene, and Morgan says he knows what’s going to happen, but the man says it doesn’t have to happen to him. The man says he has something, and digs in his bag. Morgan says he told him, he doesn’t want any… and the man pulls out a bag of pickle chips. He says he got them in a vending machine. His wife would kill him if she knew he was giving them away. Morgan looks like he needs a boost. Morgan says, save them for his wife, but the man puts them on the counter, and says if Morgan changes his mind, they’re right there. He introduces himself as Isaac, and Morgan says, no. He does not want to get to know him. Isaac says he gets it. He asks if the dead always ignore Morgan like they did? Isaac looks outside, and sees a dog. He tells Morgan, stay back. We see Emile in the street out front, and a zombie clamors at the window. Emile asks, who’s in there? Isaac comes to the door, and Emile asks if he’s Mr. Jones. Um… It might have been a good idea for Ginny to describe Morgan. Isaac says, no, and Emile tells him there’s no need to fear. All he wants is a little chat. He cuts an errant zombie’s head off with his battle ax. Morgan tells Isaac, don’t.  

Isaac walks out, and Emile is gutting the zombie. Isaac says he doesn’t want trouble, and Emile says he won’t have any. Isaac says he doesn’t know Mr. Jones, and Emile wonders what Rufus is smelling. He takes a paper out of his bag with a (bad) drawing of Morgan, and asks if Isaac has seen him. Isaac says, dead or alive, and Emile says, if he’s alive, he’s not alone. He’s lost a lot of blood. Isaac asks why he’s looking for Morgan, and Emile says he’s asking the questions. Isaac says he hasn’t seen Morgan, and Emile says the social contract goes both ways. If Isaac helps with his problem, Emile will help Isaac with his. Isaac asks what makes Emile think he has a problem? and Emile says, we all have problems. He flicks the paper, and asks if Isaac knows him. Isaac says he doesn’t think so. Sorry. He doesn’t think he can help. Rufus barks, and scratches at the door, and Emile wonders why his dog is so intrigued. Is anyone else in there with him? Isaac says, nope, and Emile takes a closer look at Isaac. He says, my, my, my. Isaac sure is sweating. They should go inside and cool down. Isaac opens the door, and Rufus barks at a blanket on the floor. Emile says the blanket holds the scent of the man he’s been looking for. Isaac tells Emile that he said he hasn’t seen him. He was attacked by the dead, and holed up there. The ones he didn’t kill wandered off. Emile uses his ax to chop open a chifforobe, but it’s empty. He busts open another one, and Isaac says he’s only going to attract more of them. The guy he’s looking for is probably right down the road.

Emile knocks on the window, and some zombies toddle up. He says if the man he’s looking for is where Isaac says he is, he’ll uphold his end of the social contract. He leaves, and Isaac goes out the back door. He fends off a few zombies, stabbing them in the head, and sees Morgan passed out.

Isaac tends to Morgan’s wound, and says, it’s not okay. Morgan sees they’re back at the tower, and says Isaac can’t be in there. He has to go. Isaac says the bullet is close to Morgan’s pulmonary artery. If it’s fragmented, and Morgan moves the wrong way, he could die. He asks if Morgan stitched himself up. No doctor would have left the bullet. Morgan asks how he found the tower, and Isaac says Morgan’s bag had the coordinates written in it; he took a chance. Morgan asks, why? and Isaac says he needs Morgan’s help. His wife is 8 months pregnant, and having contractions. If the baby comes early, she might need oxygen. Their place was surrounded by zombies, and there are too many to push through. He went looking for a gun, and that’s when he and Morgan met. Morgan asks if he has ammo, since it’s getting harder to come by, and Isaac shows him a handful of bullets. Morgan takes out the gun he found, and says, take it and leave. Isaac loads the gun, but says, it won’t work. It will just draw more of them. Morgan could walk them past the rotters, and they won’t even know they’re there. Morgan says he can’t help them, but Isaac says, sure he can. Morgan gets up, and Isaac asks, what’s wrong? Morgan points to his pokey stick, and asks how Isaac knew his name. Isaac says he saw Morgan’s tape at a truck stop. He wasn’t sure it was Morgan when he saw him outside the thrift shop. Morgan says he doesn’t do that anymore, and Isaac asks, why? Morgan says, he just doesn’t. He needs Isaac to leave him be. Isaac cocks the gun, and says, sorry. He’s running out of time, and doesn’t have a lot of options. Morgan says he’s not going, and suddenly, the tower rocks. A truck pulls away, and the tower falls.  

Morgan opens his eyes to Rufus. Emile says Isaac lied to him. Isaac is busy whacking zombies, and Morgan calls him over. Morgan picks up the gun, and aims it at Emile. Emile calmly kills a zombie, and says Morgan is already dead; they can smell it. Isaac tells Morgan, do it, and Morgan shoots Emile in the arm. Morgan and Isaac jet, or at least go as fast as they can, and jump into Emile’s truck. Emile walks toward them like Michael Meyers, at a slow, steady pace, and Isaac speeds off.

When they’re far enough away, Isaac stops and they get out. Isaac says they’ll have to take the long way around, but Morgan says he’s going back to the tower to salvage what’s left. Isaac tells him to forget that place. It’s done. Why risk going back? Morgan says it’s the only reason he’s still breathing. It was his secret hideout. Isaac says, not that secret. Morgan says if that a-hole had been killed or not, he’d be dead soon anyway. The tower isn’t for him. It’s for… Isaac says, who? and Morgan says Isaac asked if he’d stitched himself up; he didn’t. Someone else did. Isaac asks, who? and Morgan says, he was shot, and barely hanging on. The walkers were about to tear him apart. He heard gunshots, and the walkers dropped, but he passed out. He woke up patched up. Whoever did it, left him this note: You don’t know me, but I heard your message. You need to do the same. You still have things left to do. Isaac says, the message doesn’t matter. Whoever he’s been fixing the place up for, he’s guessing Morgan thought it would keep them safe. It’s not going to do that now; it probably never would have. Where he’s going, it is safe. Whoever Morgan was setting the tower up for will be safe there. Morgan asks why Isaac would do that for him? and Isaac says if Morgan takes care of his family, he’ll take care of Morgan’s. Morgan nods, and says, let’s go. Isaac gets his bag from the truck, and they start walking.

Morgan tells Isaac, her name is Grace. He found out she was pregnant the night he was shot. Isaac asks, what happened to everybody else? Ginny split them up, didn’t she? Morgan points his pokey stick at Isaac, and says there’s something Isaac isn’t telling him. Isaac knew his name; now he knows Ginny’s. Isaac says he gets what Morgan is thinking, and what he’s thinking is bullsh*t. Morgan says Isaac is leading him back to her, but Isaac asks why he’d do that. He ran from her too. He used to be one of her rangers. He should have told Morgan, but he didn’t think he could trust him. Morgan puts his pokey stick down, and Isaac says he wasn’t lying; he did see Morgan on the tape when he was on patrol. They were giving away what Ginny was charging people for. When his wife got pregnant, they realized their kid would pay the price for what Ginny was doing. What Morgan was trying to do seemed better, so he and his wife ran, and decided to do the same. Morgan asks where they’re going, and Isaac says someplace he thinks that can happen. He knows it can, and he can be a part of it. He says Morgan has got to let him take the bullet out. Morgan says, too late, but Isaac says, not true. Why is Morgan leaving it in there? Does he think he deserves it? Morgan keeps walking.

They stand at the top of a hill, and Isaac says, there it is. It looks like a reservoir, and there are zombies wandering all over. Isaac says he tried to lead the rotters away, but it keeps drawing them back. He gives Morgan his bag, and says, give these to his wife; her name is Rachel. Morgan says, this place isn’t safe. What if Ginny finds it? Isaac says, she won’t. She never found it when he was one of her rangers, and even if she does, no one will get past the concrete wall. He tells Morgan to get a move on, and Morgan asks what he’s going to do. Isaac says, there’s another way in through the mountains. It will take a couple of days, and he hopes he gets there before the baby does. Morgan gives him the gun, and says, be careful. Isaac thanks him, and watches as the zombies shuffle along. Morgan gets closer, but they ignore him for the most part. He falls, and I say, oh sh*t. He leans on his pokey stick, and cries out. This time the zombies notice, but Isaac shoots one, and then another. He tells Morgan that he’s right there, and Morgan picks up his staff. Morgan goes nuts on the zombies, spearing one through the mouth, and another in the forehead, and seems to be getting into it. Isaac uses a knife he’s carrying, and smashes some in the head with rocks. All of the zombies have been taken care of, and I think, that was quick.

It’s quiet now. Isaac and Morgan head toward the building, and Morgan gives Isaac the bag. He says he thinks it’s better coming from Isaac. They’re standing in an area that has sparse vegetation, and Morgan asks, where’s the lake? Isaac says he’s standing in it. There used to be water filling the valley as far as you could see, but when the dam gave way, all this was covered. On the map, all you see is a lake. Morgan says, that’s why she’ll never find it. They go inside, and Isaac hugs Rachel. He says he got there as fast as he could, and she asks if he’s okay. He says he is, knowing that she’s okay. She tells him, the contractions are getting closer, and he says he’s here now. He introduces Morgan, and says Morgan helped him get back. He asks how far apart the contractions are, and she says, a few minutes. Get ready. The baby is coming.

It’s dark out. Isaac and Morgan are outside, and Isaac says, it won’t be much longer now. His grandpa used to take him fishing, and tell him crazy stories about how the town was flooded to make a lake. He thought his grandpa was pulling his leg. He came there looking for his grandpa’s fishing cabin, and found this instead. It was there all along, but the world had to end for them to find it. The soil is rich from the silt, and they can rebuild. Morgan says, no, no, no. He survived something most people don’t. He knew what he had to do, and thought the water tower was it, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe it was about getting Isaac back. They hear shots and a dog bark. Isaac tells Rachel, they aren’t there. It’s not the first time Ginny used him to find someone. Morgan tells Isaac, find his people and bring them there. Take care of his family. Isaac says he can’t let it end like this, but Morgan says Emile only fights because people pay him. He has something to fight for. He goes outside.

Emile says, even he can smell Morgan. Morgan can’t fight him. Morgan says, Ginny can have it, as long as he leaves the others alone. Emile says, it’s not a negotiation. Morgan says he’s trying to make it easy; make it count for something. Emile says he makes a good point, and Morgan throws his pokey stick down, and falls to his knees. Emile walks closer, and puts down his gun. He tells Morgan, he won’t even feel this, and moves toward him with the ax. Isaac comes up behind Emile, but Emile realizes, and knocks him down. Emile is about to kill Morgan, but Morgan fights back with his pokey stick. He  tells Isaac, get up and get inside. He can’t die. He needs to reassemble Morgan’s people. Isaac says he can’t. He lifts his shirt, and shows Morgan a bite wound. He says he got bit coming in before; when he went looking for a gun. It’s not about him. Morgan says he got Isaac there, but can’t be who Isaac needs him to be. Isaac says, he changed; so can Morgan. Emile wakes up, and knocks Isaac down again. Morgan and Emile fight, and Emile grabs Morgan’s pokey stick from him. He grips Morgan’s shoulder, putting pressure on Morgan’s wound. I tell Morgan, that guy has to die. Morgan lies on the ground, and Emile picks up his ax. As he’s about to bring the blade down, Morgan blocks it with his pokey stick. He looks at the note on the ground near him, and knocks Emile down, stabbing him with the pokey end of the stick. Alrighty then. Emile says Morgan couldn’t do it then, and he won’t do it now. Morgan takes this challenge, picks up the ax, and does it. He chops Emile’s head off.  

I think, some man’s best friend, since Rufus has been nowhere to be seen during this whole kerfuffle. Morgan tells Isaac, that message. Know what he told them? He told them to live, just live. We hear a baby cry, and Morgan tells Isaac, go meet his kid. Isaac says he thinks Morgan is right, but he’s just going to rest right there.

Rufus wakes Morgan, licking his face. Morgan’s shoulder is bandaged, and he sees the bullet sitting in a bloody dish. Rachel says, Isaac insisted on taking it out. He didn’t think Morgan would mind. She’s holding the baby, and Morgan asks, boy or girl? She says, girl. They have a daughter. Morgan smiles, and she says they named her Morgan. Aww. She says, it was Isaac’s idea. Morgan asks where Isaac is. He should thank him. Rachel looks sad and starts to cry. He nods.

Rachel brings Morgan to a pile of rocks, and Morgan says he wouldn’t be there if wasn’t for Isaac. He sees Emile’s head, mouth moving, and sees the key. A zombie toddles out, and Morgan takes his staff out of Emile’s body. As he walks toward the zombie, he sees the ax, and drops the staff. He whacks the top of the zombie’s head off.  

A small caravan of trucks stops before a line of bodies across the road. Men with guns get out, and one of them calls to Ginny. She gets out, and sees the box that says Morgan Jones on it. She lifts the lid, and it’s Emile’s head. I laaaugh, and she laughs. At least she gets irony. She suddenly stops laughing, and looks around. She says, if you’re there, if you can hear me. I want you to listen and listen good. She thought she needed him dead for this to work, but she doesn’t. She just needed everyone to think he is, which they will. If he tries the tiniest bit to convince anyone otherwise, she’ll add them to this pile – one by one. Does he copy? The radio crackles, and Morgan says, Morgan Jones is dead. She’s dealing with somebody else now.

Morgan watches through binoculars. He’s all spiffed up, waring a cowboy hat, and sitting on a horse.  

A guy continues to spray paint, The End is the… He stops to stab a zombie in the head. Another guy joins him, and says, they should have been here by now. The painter says, there’s got to be more. They can’t stick around. Other guy says, they need that key. They’ll have to wait somewhere else. The painter finishes, and it says, The End is the Beginning. On the side of a blimp.

This season, Ginny says they’re all after the same thing, she wants to make sure people feel safe; Ginny says an example needs to be made; Morgan says, they’ll find everybody; things blow up; and we learn more about the key.

World Beyond

As the four friends dive deeper into zombie country, they learn it’s not going to be like they thought it was. Five minutes out of the gate, Iris has to kill her first zombie, and flashes back to Felix’s training sessions. He explains, if getting them in the brain doesn’t work, sweep its legs. You don’t want to tire yourself out. It’s all about avoidance; keeping a safe distance between life and death. He tells them that they’ll be scared the first time they face one, and should be. They should be scared every time they’re outside the walls.

As soon as Felix read the note Iris left, he and Huck took off after the group. They managed to practice avoidance, but professed their love to one another.  

A lot of the show is done with flashbacks, and we saw some of Elton’s backstory. Before the apocalypse, Elton’s father had been out of work. While using Elton’s computer to look for jobs, he saw Elton’s emails, and confronted Elton about being gay. Elton admitted he was, and his father kicked him out of the house, telling him not to come back. He said he no longer knew Elton, and had no son. Elton talked to Hope about what was going on, and said they’d already been killing themselves, directly and indirectly. Nature had just made a shortcut. His lifespan prediction for them was another 15 years.

The kids saw a column of smoke in the distance, and called it the blaze of glory. It was an ongoing fire, the source of which seemed to be unknown, but the speculation was that it was a huge pile of tires. Elton said it had been attracting zombies for years, and the louder it gets, the more zombies that come. Iris thought they could get through it, which didn’t thrill Hope, who asked why they couldn’t just go around. Iris said if they did, the river would take them 60 miles out of their way. Again, I didn’t understand why they didn’t drive. Even if none of them has learned to drive, I can’t believe between these four overachievers, they couldn’t figure it out. Hope left a large empty can of sliced peaches in the middle of the street when they left. Which surprisingly, no one noticed, and I was pretty sure it was to mark their trail. Felix ended up finding the peach can, and told Huck that it had been stolen from his apartment.  

Felix also got some backstory. We saw him running through stopped cars on the highway, general panic surrounding him, and military planes flying overhead. He ran to his parents’ house, wanting to help them, but they told him to get lost and turned out the lights. While he and Huck were stopped for the night, he went back to the house, where his parents were now zombies, to kill them.

Elton talked about wanting to track the migration of the zombies. As well as being a Eugene Junior, I noticed some Al in him too, as he seems to be the historian of the group, keeping records and taking pictures along the way. He also waxed philosophical a few times. Silas froze, not being able to make his first kill, and the kids holed up for the night in a house where they found a Monopoly game. The coolest thing in this episode was when the group heard a sound coming from a pretty decrepit zombie sitting on a bench. Bees had taken up residence inside, and came pouring out.

I have to mention that the girls’ makeup is perfect, always.

The group was heading for an airfield that would give them a clear path, but had to get through the zombies and fire to get there. They decided to first go through a parking lot using the buses and trucks as cover. As they got closer to the fire, the smoke impaired their vision, and there was zero sunlight. They managed to get through, but realized there was a lot more they were going to have to deal with, and it wasn’t going to be the cakewalk they thought. The takeaway point was that nothing is ever as easy as you think it’s going to be. And these kids were way off.

Next time, we see more flashbacks about Felix’s parents, and Hope decides to provide a distraction so the others can get through.  

🤹🏽‍♀️ So Many Balls in the Air Already…

It’s barely Monday, and already I’m scrambling. Sunday nights have now become a juggling act TV-wise. Halloween will soon be here, and I’m still in flux over how that’s going to go pandemically, and how much candy to get. While in theory, having two pounds of leftover candy sounds great, in practice, I don’t want to gain ten pounds before Thanksgiving. I also still have to finish this week’s article for https://mupoentertainment.com/theresa-krakauskas/. So until we sail the Spanish seas on Deck, stay safe, stay pragmatic, and stay taking Morgan’s advice to just live.