Well damn, that came out of nowhere! We should know that in Fear The Walking Dead that no one is safe (especially since the show isn’t bound by a previously established comic book), but this one was a shocker, and a sad one at that. More on that in a sec…..
Last week’s episode ended with Morgan and his newfound friends Althea and John being taken captive by Alicia, Nick, Strand, and Luciana as they mistakenly thought that they were associated with the newfound bad guys, The Vultures. After being forced to leave “The Diamond,” they came across Morgan and company and wanted some vengeance on them. Althea quickly told them that the flag with the mysterious number was not theirs as they came across it as well. Althea seems to be a journalist, but she didn’t last this long without some killer survival instincts. After getting the drop on Nick and holding him hostage, but a crash with some zombies on the road made roles get reversed as Alicia and company then became hostages.
Not wanting to be at odds with their newfound “friends” Althea proposes that the group work together to get her SWAT van out of the ditch and search for supplies to help tow the armored vehicle. Nick has to stay behind as a hostage (she isn’t stupid). Morgan remained behind to watch him as his leg is still badly injured while the rest of the groups operated as one to get the necessary things to resolve their situation. Nick tries to flex his muscle, but even an injured Morgan is a dangerous one. He uses his staff to knock Nick in his place a few times. However, the horn going off from the crash is luring more zombies to their location. After one scuffle with the zombies, Nick high tails it out of there, leaving an injured Morgan all alone. Nick gets overrun by zombies only for Morgan to save his neck.
This episode (and hopefully more episodes) operate on two different timelines. The flashback takes us to when The Vultures started camping out at The Diamond to wait out Madison and her group. With the weevils eating all the remaining crops they have, Nick knows he needs to contribute and goes out with his mother to look for supplies. As they leave, The Vulture’s leader Mel taunts them that there aren’t many supplies around. He also gives back the book that Luciana left for little miss cute turncoat spy Charlie, affirming that she’s with them. Madison is holding onto hope that Charlie will see that her group is better. As they go looking for supplies, they get beat by one of The Vultures who fills his truck with the supplies while taunting Nick and Madison. This angers Nick who holds a knife to his throat, only for Madison to stop her son. Turns out, this specific Vulture is Charlie’s surrogate father as he rescued her and he boasts that Madison and Nick can’t turn her so easily.
Back in the present while looking for a place to lay low, Nick reveals to Morgan that he wants to enact vengeance against The Vultures, specifically the guy who taunted him with the blue car. Morgan tries to coach him out of that thought process. He tells Nick that he doesn’t kill. But Nick knows that Morgan has killed in the past. In fact, he watched the video of Althea’s interview with Morgan. When he presses Morgan, he shuts the conversation down.
The blended group looking for supplies comes across a garage that has a semi with a towing cable that will help them get the SWAT car out of the ditch. While they are working on getting it together, Althea reveals he reasoning for documenting “the truth.” Strand is the most inquisitive as he sees no point to it all, yet Althea is dedicated to her mission. The team arrives at the SWAT car with the semi and after killing many zombies (with Alicia as bait), they manage to get the car out. At first fearful that Morgan and Nick are killed by the zombies, Morgan had made a makeshift sign pointing them in their direction.
Morgan notices the blue car and the Vulture we have come to hate. He warns the man to walk away as walk away soon. The arrogant man pays to attention to Morgan, until Nick shows up. Morgan does his best to try and get Nick to walk away as nothing good will come of it. Nick asks Morgan is he going to go all the way to stop him. Morgan relents and lets Nick go ahead. Then Nick confronts the Vulture and the two go at it hard. During the struggle, Nick impales the man on a pair of deer antlers killing him. In the aftermath, he tells Nick of a better way, the way he learned from the one guy who taught him to focus himself and use the staff as a weapon of peace (even though Morgan has killed many with it). He gives Nick a copy of “The Art of Peace” telling him it’s not too late to come back.
This is where it gets tough…..
The group catches up to Morgan and Nick. Althea had a mild freakout as she wanted to make sure her tapes were safe, especially a group of tapes labeled “The Bog,” which we’ll surely find out what that means. Nick sits in another area reading Morgan’s book, seemingly ready to turn back around. Just then a shot rings out. Nick’s taken a blast to the chest. The shooter… little Charlie!! Nick then slumps to the ground just as Alicia, Strand, and Luciana see him. Charlie ran away so they couldn’t get her. There’s nothing they can do but watch him die.
This is a doozy as Nick has been with us since the beginning. In fact, he was the first person we saw in the original episode. Like Travis last year, Nick’s death is a shocking one. Since we are watching the show in two different timelines, we’ll probably see him in flashbacks (we still haven’t seen Madison in the present, maybe she’s dead too), but for our current timeline, his death is a tough one. RIP Nick!
