“Fear The Walking Dead” premieres with a shocking transformation for Morgan

My extreme aversion to the final two seasons of Fear the Walking Dead is well documented at this point, as I haven’t enjoyed much about the show’s recent era after the Clark family breakup and a change of tone after season 3.

But I have to admit that yesterday I was surprised by the premiere of the sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead, the first of many “individual” episodes for different characters that were split up after the fifth season finale. I was skeptical that the concept would work, but at least last night’s premiere, which focused on Morgan, was … extremely good indeed. And it’s a return to form for the character who hasn’t been where he needs to be in years, in both Fear and TWD when he was on the original show.

What we had last night was essentially a small piece that was mostly made up of three characters. Morgan, who survived his gunshot wound from last season, but barely Isaac, a man who comes to his rescue, and a bounty hunter with a dog and a vicious ax chasing Morgan into Virginia.

Fear the Walking Dead is essentially going all the way west now, and for this episode at least, it really works.

Morgan is so literally on the verge of death that the dead can’t even smell him anymore because of the burn from his rotting wound and walk past him like he’s carrying Walker guts.

Isaac covers Morgan as the bounty hunter searches for him, and Morgan agrees to return the man to his entrenched pregnant wife, who is about to give birth.

The resulting sequences are pretty standout, as Morgan uses his only remaining arm to cut through Wanderers, possibly the worst incarnation we’ve seen of his character in years. Finally and ultra Spoiler Lying in front of us, we see him face off against the hangman’s bounty hunter, and in the end he kills him with his own ax.

Not only that, he returns the bounty hunter’s head to Virginia in a box and informs her that Morgan Jones is dead and that she is now dealing with someone else. He throws away the stick, which has been the staple of his normally pacifist character for years, and takes the bloody ax along with the man’s coat and cowboy hat. Isaac is dead, succumbing to a bite he had previously suffered, and now it is Morgan’s job to look after both his wife Rachel and their newborn baby, a girl named Morgan after the man who helped her father. And he has to find the rest of his old crew.

There are also two constant secrets in this premiere. First, Morgan has no idea how he survived. He just wakes up with a note stating that someone heard and helped his dying message and that he has more work to do. So let’s try to find out who that was.

Second, the episode ends with the reveal of a stranded submarine and two men waiting by it and needing a key to open something inside. A key Morgan now has after removing it from the bounty hunter’s severed neck. Looks like the kind of key that would have to turn two of them at the same time to say start a nuke or something similarly destructive. I mean, what else would be in a stranded submarine?

This was a good result. The change in tone, leaving Morgan as a mentally unstable, peace-loving monk, the new puzzles to be solved. It’s just very good. I’ll have to see more of the rest of the season before declaring this quality shift permanent, but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with this premiere in ways I wasn’t expecting. Not me want Afraid of being bad, I want it to be great, and if future episodes continue on that note, maybe it actually is possible. We have to wait and see.

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