There were two major themes coursing through this week’s Fear the Walking Dead, “The Wrong Side of Where You Are.” The first, espoused by Morgan, could just as easily apply to The Walking Dead or even our own current political climate.
“This has to stop some place, you know?” Morgan says to Charlie.
Look: Morgan just left the All Out War in Virginia. For two-and-a-half seasons, it was tit-for-tat. Each side killed members of the other side until it finally came to a head, and then many more people died before Rick could finally neutralize Negan and extract a surrender from the Saviors. During the course of that war, however, reason and logic flew out the door, and it became about winning at whatever the cost. Morgan played a role in that, too. Hell, he killed more people than anyone.
It’s what this country is going through right now, and it’s hard not to see the parallels that Fear is drawing. Open up Twitter on any given day, and it’s just two opposing forces — people from the same country who should be on the same side — attacking each other often to their own detriment, ignoring reason and logic. It will go until the midterms, and then the dynamics may shift. But it’ll keep going until the Presidential election in 2020, and then the battlefield may change, but it will probably continue going, each side delivering blows until there are no winners, only a John Dories, innocent people hit in the crossfire.
“This has to stop some place, you know?” (Jones/Dorie 2020!)
Alicia and Strand don’t want to hear that, and we have a better understanding of why now. All those zombies that the Vultures were hoarding? Ennis decided to ambush the stadium with them. He rounded up over 3000 of the walking dead. He essentially set them on fire and steered them into the stadium. “If this place isn’t going to fall on its own,” Ennis told his brother, Mel. “I’m going to make it fall.” To his credit, Mel broke with Ennis on this plan and took Charlie with him. However, after Mel wrecked the bus and injured himself, Madison brought Mel back into the stadium, only to let him go later so that he could avoid his brother’s own ambush.
An ailing Mel didn’t get very far. Alicia and Nick went to rescue him. On their way back, however, they got trapped behind Ennis’ ambush. The zombies encircled their car outside the stadium. Presumably, when Madison left the stadium to get them, the dead overran the stadium. Somehow, Alicia and Nick escaped. Somehow, Charlie — inside the stadium — managed to get out and reunite with Mel. Somehow, Naomi and Strand also escaped, going their separate ways.
As for Madison? That’s the $10 million question, isn’t it? Did she make it out alive? And if so, where is she? Or is she still inside that stadium, days, weeks, or months later, holed up inside a skybox eating what’s left of their rations while the dead graze on the field. Or perhaps she is among those dead?
That’s the question the midseason finale will finally answer. It may also answer the question of whether Alicia, Strand and Luciana will continue in their efforts to kill Naomi, if the zombies don’t take care of her first. I don’t see how these two sides — Morgan’s group and Alicia’s group — can co-exist. Unless, of course, Madison is still alive, and she can explain to Alicia that Naomi didn’t abandon her and escape with the Just in Case truck.
“I tried to protect someone. I only wound up hurting them,” Naomi told Morgan, explaining what happened after she left John Dorie. If that person she was trying to protect was Madison, how badly did she hurt her?
That brings us to the episode’s second theme, wherein we return to the copy of The Little Prince that Nick brought Charlie way back in season’s second episode, and which made yet another appearance in this episode.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye,” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in The Little Prince. In other words, important things can only be seen with the heart, not with the eyes. It’s what Naomi was trying to tell Madison. “This place, I know you built it for your kids. But it’s not worth risking their lives. Or yours.”
A home is not a place that can be seen with the eyes. It’s not a roof, or a bedroom, or a dinner table. A home can only be seen with the heart — it is the bond that ties a family together. That bond can travel anywhere the family goes, so long as they remain together. Unfortunately, unless Alicia listens to Morgan — “this has to stop somewhere, you know?” — there won’t be anything left to see with one’s eyes or with one’s heart.
Additional Notes
— We know that everyone survives the initial ambush on the stadium, except that Madison’s fate is up in the air, as well as the Dell Diamond redshirts. We also know that Nick, Ennis, and Mel are dead (and the Vultures, presumably, wiped out). What we don’t know is who will survive the midseason finale, although we can assume that at least John Dorie and Strand survive, thanks to Instagram photos.
— I think, besides John Dorie and Morgan, the character I’m most worried about is Althea’s military vehicle. I’d hate to lose that.
— I hope that we also get an explanation for the Thunderdome braid that Naomi is sporting now, too.
— I love the evolution of Morgan Jones, not just from The Walking Dead to Fear the Walking Dead, but from the loner at the beginning of the season to the guy that seems to be bringing characters together now. Also, he saved Charlie, who I assume will become a cast regular in the back half of the season. Here they are at the present day Dell Diamond baseball field.
