This recap article contains spoilers for Season 8, Episode 1 of Fear the Walking Dead, read-only if you are aware of this or have watched the episode.
The first episode of Fear the Walking Dead‘s eighth and final season has now been released in both the US and the United Kingdom, along with its early AMC+ release last week, meaning the spoiler-safe zone has now ended allowing for full discussion to begin.
Full Spoiler Fast Recap
This recap will not be diving into theories or footage seen in promotional material.
The episode kicks off with Morgan Jones and Maddison Clark in an interview room full of PADRE members, with Morgan shown being interviewed by a mysterious voice behind a loudspeaker, the voice explains that PADRE wants Morgan to become a “Collector” like Maddison. This is a job role, as shown in Season 7, that consists of kidnapping children and bringing them to PADRE.
Maddison quickly turns against the soldiers after the brief discussion to save Morgan, which works as he flees the room leaving Maddison behind, as she seems to essentially sacrifice herself to let Morgan leave the sinister PADRE.
The episode then cuts to a little girl training to fight zombies, a new character, she seems to be scared while fighting the zombies but it is unclear as to why, her name is Wren. The children, and PADRE, call Walkers ‘Carrion’, another new term in The Walking Dead universe’s many terms for zombies.
Wren later goes down to some dark basement, curiously, and walks up to a creepy door, this door is revealed to be a prison cell door with the cell containing Maddison Clark marking down in tally marks how long she has been in the cell for, however, it is unclear at first as to if this is a flashback or not.
The time and date setting of this scene, and episode, is quickly confirmed as Maddison realises that Wren is actually Morgan’s adopted daughter, Mo, with the reveal that there has been a seven or eight-year time jump, a rapid time jump at that, surely being set closer to the main series that has now ended.
Maddison and Mo escape PADRE, to Mo’s resistance, with PADRE being an island, the two then later bump into Morgan, with a rather quick and sudden reveal from Morgan to Mo that he is her father.
It is here when it is surprisingly revealed that Morgan is now working for PADRE and wants to return Maddison and Mo back to the island, which is revealed to be due to the fact that Morgan believes Mo, aka Wren, is safer in the hands of PADRE.
Morgan calls himself Nightingale now, it should also be noted that at this point of the episode, it has been made clear that Mo has a scar on her wrist, however, it has yet to be revealed as to how she obtained it.
The three eventually get to an old hideout of Morgans, where Mo listens to a tape player that contains a tape of Grace, her adopted mother, singing a lullaby from when Mo was a baby, it is at this point when Mo starts to remember small snippets of her extremely young past.
The hideout is on top of a deep bed of water, which is almost instantly compromised due to Mo shooting a gun, as the hideout building gets overrun with walkers who basically start to sink the building into the water – Maddison tells them both to leave, which they do, and tries to sacrifice herself to save them from being killed by the relatively large amount of walkers approaching.
This is when Grace enters the episode and season, for the first time, as she rolls up in a little speedboat of sorts, taking down all the walkers who were about to chomp down on Maddison, it is quickly revealed after this that Grace is also a “Collector” for PADRE.
Grace and Morgan both betray Mo and Maddison, by calling PADRE, giving them both away moments later, however, due to the events that happen during the episode, members from PADRE tell Morgan that he can no longer be trusted as a “Collector” for PADRE.
The episode quickly comes to an end after this, a worthy mention that should be noted is the fact that PADRE is actually a man, one man, however, it has yet to be revealed as to who is voicing him.
Fear The Walking Dead Season 8, Episode 1 is now available to watch on AMC+
