Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 1 Recap: The end...

In the meantime, the rest of the episode works if we follow the imagination that Morgan spent the last five or six weeks relaxing in a tricked water tower. Again, a large part of it falls on James, whose strong performance immediately invested me in Morgan’s physical and existential struggles. He’s also struggling with a crisis of faith, albeit mostly within himself. The theme last season was altruism – led by Morgan, who was determined to help people whether they wanted help or not. This, of course, had dire consequences, leading not only to Virginia’s attempted murder of Morgan, but also to the fact that the group was split up and sent to different settlements. So it makes sense that Morgan is so resilient to making new friends in this episode – even if they’re just as eager to help strangers as they were before.

As we soon find out, the past few weeks have been difficult for Morgan. During this time he himself has become more than just metaphorically the walking dead. He has one foot in the grave thanks to a burn wound and a fragment of a ball near his pulmonary artery. The only advantage to this is that its necrotic flesh allows it to blend in with the dead, as Nick often did when camouflaged in walker’s blood.

Even in the best of times, removing the bullet would be risky. But Morgan doesn’t want it removed. Is it because he thinks he deserves to die? Is his suffering some kind of twisted penance for not saving every last living person in a world that has gone bad? Knowing Morgan, the answer to these questions can only be yes.

This still doesn’t stop him from befriending Isaac (Michael Abbot, Jr.), a former Marines corpsman and now an expectant father. It turns out he’s also one of the former Virginia rangers who escaped after a change of heart caused by one of Morgan’s serious videotaped messages. “I’ve changed,” says Isaac. “You can do that too.”

But change can mean something completely different in such an environment. Change can be a positive thing, yes, but in a world where hell is full, change can also mean never going to your reward. It can mean that failure is your constant companion, drawing you so close to the earth that you can taste the bottom. Here is Morgan again, plagued by failures and concerns. In other words, being Morgan Jones isn’t easy, especially when a bean-eating, ax-wielding bounty hunter named Emile (Demetrius Grosse) is on his trail.