‘Fear The Walking Dead’ S4E8: “No One's Gone”

With all the time shifts this season on Fear The Walking Dead, we kind of knew where this week’s mid-season finale was heading.  That doesn’t make it any less impactful (or heartbreaking)……

Last week ended with Alicia and crew on a warpath against The Vultures, as well as their newest member, Naomi.  They scored a victory as they finally got rid of Mel, who I thought was going to last a little while longer than he did.  He was an interesting villain as he was not trying to rule like Negan and The Saviors, but instead, just wanted to survive a little bit more than everyone else.   Morgan and John were in the middle of the fight, and John ended up taking a stray bullet.  Then the race was on to try and save John.  With most places picked clean by The Vultures, there was only one place left to go… The Stadium, which we found out was overrun with zombies.

The episode begins in the past where Madison runs upon an unsuspecting person camping out.  Madison has seen better days, but at this moment, she’s desperate.  At gunpoint, she attempts to rob the person of their vehicle.  When the person finally turns around, it’s none other than Althea.  She immediately begins her journalism questions, which give her enough time to try and get the drop on Madison, but Madison already knew that was coming and knocks her out and takes her car.  Madison is intrigued by Al’s tapes and goes through them in the hopes that she sees Nick and Alicia on them and find out where they are.  This delays Madison enough for Al to catch up to her and hold her at gunpoint.  Then, she negotiates an interview with Madison, but since she never learns her name, she writes down “Amina” after the story she tells Al which deals with her children caring for a bird name Amina.  After the story, Al lets her go and thinks nothing of it.

In the present, Al, Morgan, Naomi, and John are stuck in the SWAT van surrounded by zombies in the baseball stadium.  With John not doing too well, they are going to have to go out and brave hordes of zombies.  Morgan and Naomi decide to head out.  After Al uses the last of her machine guns, they make a run for it.  Unfortunate for them, Alicia, Strand, and Luciana catch up to them at the stadium and start firing away.  Oh, and they also have an RPG which takes the door off the SWAT van.  Alicia then goes and fights against Al, to the point that she almost has Al eaten by zombies crowding around them.  She finally gets the drop on Al and orders her to tell Naomi to come out, or else she’ll slit little Charlie’s throat.  Al goes along and tells Naomi that it’s safe, but looks to John, who then turns on the walkie-talkie so she and Morgan can hear everything going on.  Alicia lets up on Al when she realizes that Al had some Chinese food that she remembers her mother having, signaling that she interviewed her mother way back when.  Alicia and co then go into the stadium and catch up to Morgan and Naomi.  Morgan stands in between the two of them so that Alicia cannot kill Naomi unless she kills him.  Morgan, ever the peacemaker tries to talk Alicia off the ledge.  There Alicia reveals that he mother is dead because of Naomi!

The groups merge together outside the stadium where Al turns her camera on and interviews everyone.  Intercut with the flashbacks, we learn Madison’s fate.  In the aftermath of The Vultures attack on the stadium, Strand and Madison went out to save Nick and Alicia.  Mel managed to escape with Charlie, but now Madison and everyone are unable to get back in.  Everyone else in the stadium panics as they think the horde of zombies will get in the stadium.  As they try to leave, they are all slaughtered.  Madison then makes the motherly decision to save her kids.  Taking a flare, she leads all the zombies from the parking lot into the stadium and locks herself in.  She says goodbye to her children via walkie-talkie.  While she says “No One’s Gone” to them, it’s pretty clear that she’s gone.  Each of them recounts Madison’s sacrifice for them to live with tears in their eyes.  They all camp out as one group, even Charlie.

Both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead had some surprise deaths this season.  With Madison gone (who was with us since season one), the only member of the Clarks who is left is Alicia.  This is no longer a show about Madison the mother protecting her family, as she, unfortunately, failed at doing so.  This is now the story of Alicia, and her survival in the zombie apocalypse (which is what The Walking Dead should have been for Carl).

Fear The Walking Dead will be on break until August, but when it comes back, new challenges arise!