So we’re pretty much on the downhill slide towards mid-season on Fear the Walking Dead, which means the show needs to start tying up a few loose ends. And this week we start with The Man With the Plane…
Catting Around
Daniel (Rubén Blades) has some pretty simple days. He puts on music, checks his inventory, keeps his calendar up to date (it’s Oct 12, which if it really is 2014, means it’s Sunday and he’s working on the weekend), cooks food, and feeds his cat Skidmark.
We also see him heading out to different locations where it’s apparent there are traps — like, 50 caliber machineguns locked and loaded and wired to go off if you open a door. Using a belled Skidmark to distract zombies so he can off them, Daniel gets one booby trap disarmed, loads up a car (that was left by someone killed by the booby trap) and takes stuff back to his Hoarder’s Paradise.
So things are pretty regular…
If Not For That Meddling Kid!
Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) is inside the compound and on the prowl, because we know Strand (Colman Domingo) wants Daniel’s plane real bad. So while he waits out in the SWAT Wagon with Sarah (Mo Collins) and Wendell (Daryl Mitchell), Charlie’s sneakin’ and peekin’.
She finds the plane but also hears Daniel coming, which means she needs to hide. Which she does, in the car that Daniel picked up that day. Which he gets in and drives off.
As For the Other Kid
Back at the truck stop it’s Morgan (Lennie James), Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and Luciana (Danay Garcia) taking care of Dylan (Cooper Dodson), who even though he seems okay is still being sketchy as hell.
With the others out looking for Dwight’s wife’s trail, Morgan’s worried they’re gonna lose their focus on finding Althea (Maggie Grace). Suddenly Dylan’s like, “Hey, I know where this camp is located, try looking there,” and Alicia and Morgan are like, “yeah, let’s boogie”!
In the meantime Luciana is going to fix the long range radio antenna and Dylan will help.
Da Plane, Da Plane!
With Daniel gone, Strand, Sarah, and Wendell walk right into the compound and check out the plane. It’s a good ride, except… it’s missing like half its instruments, and without those it’s going nowhere.
That’s when Strand sees the message Daniel left for him and contacts him on the radio. Daniel knew he was coming back, just like he knows Charlie’s in the back of the car.
He ain’t letting Strand have the plane and he’s gonna save Charlie. Sarah gets on the radio and tells Daniel he’s making a mistake and he’s like, “get away from Strand, he’ll screw you over”.
Needless to say, the SWAT Wagon gang is pretty screwed right now.
Those Other Meddling Kids
Luciana’s really thankful for Dylan’s help with the antenna and she asks him to go into the truck stop and get some tape. He does, but instead of getting the tape he gets on the radio and calls Annie (Bailey Gavulic) and Max (Ethan Suess), who are busy with one of their zombie road blocks.
He lets his siblings know that Operation Keep the Adults In the Dark is going according to plan so there’s no need to worry, they’ll know what’s happening with these people real soon.
Which is good news for Annie and Max, who at the moment are trying to hide from one of those dudes in the black suits who are walking up the road and whackin’ zombies. They get off the road and slither into the bush…
It’s A Trap!
Charlie isn’t too sure about Daniel, but he knows he needs to save her from Evil Strand, not having any idea what sort of past this kid has. It’s at this point that we find out that Daniel’s really pissed about Strand being a duplicitous s**t who lied about knowing where Ofelia was, so by the time Daniel found her she had died and he couldn’t tell her something important.
They roll up to another place with another trap. This one has a lot of dead people inside – likely thanks to said trap — so Charlie suggests they head around to the back to distract the zombie so they can disarm the machine gun.
But while they’re doing that, Skidmark gets out of the car and starts doing what a cat normally does, which is to say kitty is being an annoying a**hole.
This attracts the zombies, who trigger the machine gun, which blows out the glass on the windows and door, allowing the zombies to spill into the streets.
Daniel and Charlie — and Skidmark — get back to the car and drive away slow, drawing the zombies to them because Daniel doesn’t want the herd getting bigger and hurting others.
Daniel doesn’t have enough bullets to take out the zombies here, and Sarah lets him know over the radio that she’s removed a big hunk of fence so they can drive off with his plane, so bringing the dead back to the compound and picking them off there won’t work, either.
Out of options, Daniel hands the airplane’s instruments to Charlie, tells her to drive back to the compound, and he gets out with a tape player, plays some music, and Pied-Pipers the dead out of town.
Threats All Around
The black suit dude appears to have left Annie and Max, so they come out of cover…
Of course they’re attacked by some loose zombies, and not only does Annie twist her ankle but Max drops his pistol. Not good, kids.
Morgan and Alicia show up at the location Max gave them and there’s nothing there but another bird box. They’re on the radio wanting to know what’s going on and Max finally tells them that they’ve been played. He begs them to head off towards the road because Annie and Max are in trouble…
Those two scamps are about to be eaten by zombies when Morgan and Alicia arrive and dispatch them. They try to convince the two kids they’re okay, it’s just them out here talking…which is when about a dozen more kids with guns surround them.
Dead Head Flight
Daniel is way out in the middle of nowhere with the dead still behind him.
Strand comes on the radio and lets him know help is on the way, at which point the SWAT Wagon shows up with Sarah and Wendell respectively driving and manning the guns. Sarah does a great power slide to get the Wagon sideways, tells Daniel to get up close, and then tells Wendell to pull the trigger.
He does. Nothing happens. He does it again. Still nothing happening.
Daniel goes under the Wagon and he’s in trouble. Strand rolls up in the truck hauling the plane and gets an idea. He hops in the cockpit and fires up the plane’s twin engines. Since zombies love noise they are instantly attracted…
Off they walk towards the spinning propellers, which they walk into and splatter in a fantastic way. Strand saves Daniel, but those engines not only cut out but are smoking. Never mind, though: it’s time to head back to the compound with Daniel now certain he’s not going to kill Strand.
Starting Over
Back at the compound Charlie asks what it was Daniel wanted to say to his daughter. He wanted to tell her that every day is a chance to start over. And he lets Charlie know that’s some advice she could use.
He tells everyone they can stay until he gets back: in the meantime he has to get out on the road because there’s something he has to do. He takes a cigar from Strand because it was given to him by a person who told him to save it for when things are better. After telling Charlie to look after Skidmark, he leaves.
Luciana makes contact with Strand and the others. He lets her know they found the plane but, unfortunately, the engines are burned out and he can’t come for them.
At that point Dylan asks about The Little Prince, the book Luciana gave him to read. He wants to know how he was able to fly away after his plane wrecked. Luciana says he fixed it. Well, Dylan retorts, why don’t you fix your plane? So get ready for some Flight of the Phoenix action, folks.
Oh, and back with those other kids…
After Dylan gets his siblings to listen to reason, the Children’s Crusade stands down. Morgan reiterates that they can help everyone, but Annie finally tells him why he can’t: they’re from Camp Radioactive Zombies, the one where all their parents died, giving the impression that they’re likely all dying slowly from radiation.
As they’re heading for the camp where the black suits hang out, Morgan finally opens up to Alicia and mentions that he was not only married, but that he had a son, and their names were Jennie and Duane — and something Morgan says leads one to believe he never put Duane down.
Just then a helicopter appears, sporting that three-circle logo we saw on the documents Al found. Everyone hits the deck as it hovers before departing. It’s mentioned that they came in that copter and — well, maybe they’re leaving because they have what they came for…
Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.