It’s been a long wait since the announcement that Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) would be returning to Fear the Walking Dead. Every week viewers have tuned into Season 7, hoping to see her, but AMC left her dramatic reappearance slide until the very last episode.
Previously, viewers had seen Morgan Jones (Lennie James) escape the nuclear wasteland on a raft with Baby Mo (Avaya White) in the hope of finding safety.
Last week’s episode saw a glimmer of hope, too, as everyone else — Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) included — loaded up their own rafts to blindly follow Morgan.
However, the Season 7 finale is a lesson of “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”
It also signaled the exit for Madison’s daughter, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), who had been battling an infection for the entire season. She managed to recover but not until she made sure everyone else escaped on rafts.
So, let’s see what went down in the Season 7 finale.
There are slim pickings for supplies
Episode 16, titled Gone, of Fear the Walking Dead, opens with Morgan up in a tree with Baby Mo in an attempt to avoid walkers. After all, Baby Mo is a crier, and that’s the quickest way to get eaten in the zombie apocalypse.
Now, while Morgan has apparently escaped the radioactive area, it seems that AMC forgot to take off the yellow filter and the entire episode still looks like everyone should be donning masks.
Morgan is on the hunt for food after he dodges the walkers, and he is finding it hard when he searches all the regular places for supplies. He comes across some oxygen tanks, and they will come into play a little later on.
Morgan finds another like-minded survivor
During his search, Morgan comes across another survivor, Ava (Lyndon Smith), who is holed up in her super fancy family home. She immediately wants to know if Morgan is the baby snatcher that has apparently been running rampant in the area.
Morgan talks her down, showing off Baby Mo and immediately gaining her trust thanks to her being pregnant and being able to emphasize with him.
The pair go their separate ways but don’t worry, Ava will be back.
In the meantime, Morgan gets Baby Mo taken forcibly from him and this new group, who like to wear hessian sacks over their heads, think Morgan is the baby snatcher and start to bury him up to his neck in the sand.
Except the real baby snatcher turns up, kills them all, and takes Baby Mo.
Madison is the baby snatcher
Luckily, Morgan is not yet buried and manages to escape. He demands his child be returned to him, but the person who took his child refuses.
And, low and behold, Madison is the baby snatcher.
You know, the one that would do everything for her family — including sending herself to what appeared to be a certain death — rather than have her own kids die.
It turns out she has joined a super-secret society that values babies and severs their ties to their families. They think that by having no attachments, a better society will be created.
Morgan finds all of this out once he gets to Madison’s oxygen tanks before she does. However, Baby Mo has already been given to the secret society by this point.
Also, Madison needs oxygen to survive, thanks to the fire at the Dell Stadium. And Morgan isn’t about using that against her because he doesn’t know who she is — yet.
Madison and Morgan strike a deal
Taking Madison hostage, Morgan strikes a horrible deal with Madison. If he can supply her with another child, then she will see about getting Baby Mo back to him.
So, what if the baby isn’t born yet?
That’s right, Morgan, who agonizes over absolutely every decision he makes, just up and offers up Ava as payment for the return of Baby Mo.
As they are negotiating, Morgan discovers the tattoos of her children’s names on Madison’s wrists. He immediately works out it is Madison and gets right on further negotiations once Madison asks about her kids.
He’ll tell her, but not until he gets Baby Mo back.
Right-o, where did this super unfeeling Morgan come from? Did he get reborn on the raft or something?
Regardless, he takes her right to Ava after that.
PADRE is real
In Episode 16 of Fear the Walking Dead, we learn that PADRE is real and still operational.
You see, Madison is a member of the community. Although, you can’t really call them a “community” when all they are interested in is stealing babies.
However, because Morgan has heard of them and feels obligated to Madison thanks to her kids saving his life, he decides that Ava is worth the exchange if it means he gets Baby Mo back.
And, honestly, besides it not being in character that Morgan would do that, I do love the web that they are all tangled up in. It’s the first decent storyline this season.
On the one hand, Morgan wants his child back, but he also doesn’t want to kill his friend’s mother. On top of that, he also doesn’t really want to get Ava mixed up in it all.
As for Madison, PADRE offered her oxygen as payment for her stealing children. They also said they would help her find her children if she did this for them.
However, in the long run, Madison is actually ashamed of what she has done and decides she doesn’t want to find her kids anymore, not even after she helped out PADRE because she is embarrassed by what she has done to find them.
Then, to make the plot even thicker, she knows that if she doesn’t continue to do what PADRE wants, they will track down her children and find out about what she did.
So, yeah, the writers have it in them to come up with this sort of interesting and complex emotional storyline but gave us 15 episodes of “Victor’s the bad guy.”
Morgan takes Madison to Ava
Initially, Ava seems like the sort of cardboard character that Fear the Walking Dead has been developing — and subsequently killing off — just to get the plot to work.
And, at first, that’s how it looks set to go. After all, when Morgan and Madison turn up, she just accepts their offer of going to PADRE without question.
Except, Ava is not really pregnant. Instead, her child has already been snatched by Madison, and she was just trying to lure her in so she could get her baby back.
Once again, the plot thickens.
All this goes to crap, though, when the hessian bag group turns up, and Ava, Morgan, and Madison wind up in a crypt.
Ava uses this opportunity to take control of the situation and radios the group to let them know that she has the baby snatcher.
Except that Morgan manages to get inside her head. He also reveals to Madison that both her children are dead. (Of course, viewers know that Alicia is just fine at this point.)
This splits Madison’s “I don’t care” armor wide open.
In the end, it is agreed that the only way out of the situation is to give up Madison.
Ava decides to join with the hessian bag group to storm PADRE. Madison tells her that is a super bad idea, but she ignores her.
Morgan also doesn’t think the plan will work either, so he leaves them be and heads off on his own again.
Morgan and Madison are reunited
Morgan goes back to the beach where the group tried to bury him and rescues Madison from all the walkers coming back to shore.
And those walkers? They’re the hessian bag group, so Madison was totally right about what would happen.
Morgan loses his s**t, though, because one of them is Ava, and he blames himself for getting her killed.
However, it also gives him further incentive to get Madison to help him convince PADRE that what they are doing is wrong.
Honestly, Morgan? You’re just going to walk in there and convince a top-secret government group to just stop what they’re doing?
Okay, then, you do you, I guess. However, this seems to be the mission for Season 8, as Madison is totally on board with the plan as a way to redeem herself for what she has done, and the pair then head off across the water as the credits roll on yet another season of Fear the Walking Dead.
As yet, no release date has been announced for Season 8 of Fear the Walking Dead.