It’s true what they say on Fear the Walking Dead. No one is gone until they are gone. In “The Road Ahead,” Madison (Kim Dickens) struggles with making the right decision for PADRE and her family.
Madison starts having visions of Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) from before the dead started walking. She searches for Tracy (Antonella Rose), because Tracy ran into the woods and hid from everyone. Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Sherry (Christina Evangelista) found Russell (Randy Bernales) and took him captive. Daniel (Rubén Blades) wants to leave as soon as possible. He doesn’t want to find out what Troy’s (Daniel Sharman) people will do to help his daughter. When Tracy climbs out of her hiding place, she is immediately attacked by walkers.
Madison saves Tracy and forces her to go with her to Fort Worth. They find Luciana (Danay Garcia) at a car garage, fixing a car. Madison pulls a gun on Luciana, forcing her to take them to Fort Worth. Her reasoning is that the world that Victor (Colman Domingo) wants to build will kill Tracy. Luciana agrees to take her, but only because Alicia deserves to be put to rest. She hopes Tracy will see that there’s more to fight for and maybe Madison will find peace as well. Luciana goes inside the garage to find the parts she needs to fix the car.
RELATED: Fear the Walking Dead Recap (S08E11): Fighting Like You
TWO WRONGS … NO RIGHT
Tracy says pretending they are family doesn’t make up for Madison killing Troy. She gives Alicia’s medallion back to Madison, saying it doesn’t work. Tracy also steals Madison’s gun, but it’s not loaded. Madison puts the medallion in the gun magazine and puts it in the top pocket of her jacket. Victor, Daniel, and the Alicia Clark fan club show up to talk Madison out of leaving. She reloads the gun and points it at them. Daniel says he won’t let Madison take Luciana away from him. Victor tries to coax Tracy into going with him back to PADRE.
Madison shoots the gun, attracting nearby walkers to the garage. She is convinced that staying will get Tracy killed and promises not to hurt Luciana. More walkers show up, so everyone has to go inside the garage to safety. Victor calls Frank (Isha Blaaker) for help, but PADRE is in trouble. Troy’s people were able to round up the herd again, put them on a cargo ship, and have landed on the island. Dwight takes charge and tells everyone to close the gates and get inside. Once inside, Frank calls Victor again. PADRE is surrounded by walkers, but everyone is safe for now.
Frank says they have Russell, who asks to talk to Tracy. He says if they give Tracy to him, he will call off the walkers. Madison refuses because Troy told her to watch out for the girl. They fight over who gets Tracy over the radio. Madison says Tracy is all she has left, but Russell says that’s not necessarily true. Russell confirms that Troy did in fact stab Alicia, but she stabbed him too. That’s how he got her hand. She jammed it into his stomach and his people dragged him away with it. Russell went back to see if Alicia was still alive. He found bloody footprints walking away from the location of the fight. He told Troy that she died so he would rest. Russell asks Madison to give Tracy to him so she can look for Alicia.
RELATED: Check out our The Walking Dead recaps
Daniel, Victor and Luciana tell Madison not to believe Russell. Madison refuses to give Tracy up. Russell answers by saying they will take the island instead. An explosion goes off. Troy’s people had grenade launchers that breach the walls. The radio goes silent, making Victor nervous. He opens the garage doors and they have to fight their way out. The explosion causes a fire that gets out of control. Everyone looks to Dwight for instructions on what to do next.
OUT OF A STICKY SITUATION
Dwight tells Dove, aka Odessa, (Jayla Walton) to take prefects to the one side to set off flares. The flares will thin out the herd so they can escape through the other side of the walls. Once outside, he tells everyone to run to the docks. Dwight takes Russell and heads to the gates. Once they open the doors, Dwight throws Russell in to stop the walkers in front. He is immediately eaten. The others start shooting as they walk out of the gates.
At the garage, the group kills all of the walkers. Daniel gets angry that Victor and Madison constantly put his family in danger. He blames them for losing his wife, Ofelia, and Charlie. Daniel regrets helping Madison back in LA. He says she’s been nothing but bad luck ever since. Luciana gets the car fixed. She says they can get to the refinery by sundown. Daniel takes one last jab at Madison. He says wherever Alicia is, she’s better off without Madison. Luciana gives Madison the car and some gas to find Alicia. Daniel turns to Tracy and tells her to run as far as she can from Madison and Victor. He says Madison is losing her mind. And Victor is a pathological liar that will get him and Luciana killed. He leaves with Luciana.
RELATED: Read all of The Walking Dead: Dead City Recaps Here!
Victor calls Frank. He says they are having a hard time getting out of PADRE. There’s just too many of the dead. Victor says they need to go to the island and help, but Madison doesn’t want to go. She wants to find Alicia. Victor pleads with her to help him, but Madison says she’s in no condition to go. She admits to hallucinating. Victor wants her to find Alicia, but he needs her help to save his family. Madison won’t go, upsetting Victor. He says the only thing she’s teaching Tracy is that turning your back on your friends is how you survive. He says if she finds Alicia, to tell her that he tried.
NO HOPE
Madison and Tracy get in the car. Tracy asks why it was important that Alicia believe the world could be different. Madison tells her about her abusive father. She says she had to shoot him to protect her mother. She says she wanted to give her kids a safe place to live, but just ended up getting them killed. Tracy gets it though. And that’s why she shoots Madison in the chest. Madison laughs saying Tracy finally understands. This is what happens when you try to build something better. You end up giving people hope and putting them in danger. And you end up getting killed. She tells Tracy to find Alicia and make her understand. Tracy refuses and runs away.
When Victor gets to the island, he sees the settlement is overrun. He gets on the radio and calls for help. Luciana replies saying they can’t get there in time. Dwight and the others continue fighting. Victor and the fan club run into a shipping crate to get away from the dead. Victor is distraught, screaming that it can’t end like this.
RELATED: Read all of our The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon recaps
The next morning, Tracy finds Troy’s corpse. She tells him that she shot Madison and that the others are probably dead. She tells Troy that she loves him and shoots the walker. Tracy spends the rest of the day burying him when Victor finds her. He asks her to come with him to someplace safe.
FOR HER
Victor takes Tracy to a camper. She’s confused, because she thought everyone at PADRE was dead. He says Madison saved them. But Tracy shot her, so she thought Madison was dead too. Victor says the St. Christopher’s medallion in her top pocket saved her. And it made her see that she was wrong. She wants to restore Tracy’s faith in the things that are worth fighting for.
The people at PADRE were trapped and the dead were getting in too quickly. Madison showed up, lit a flare and drew the dead toward her. She led them into PADRE, down into a corridor of cells, where she was kept. She busted open all of the oxygen tanks and then ran into her old cell to escape. Madison lit a flare and threw it out into the corridor, setting all of the walkers on fire. Victor says she did it for Tracy, to show her that fighting to survive is just as important as fighting for something better. Tracy realizes that she has no one left. Madison and Troy both died for her. She takes the gun and runs out of the camper.
RELATED: NYCC 2023: Carol Set to Return in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2
DAYS LATER …
Tracy found Madison and pulled her out of the rubble. She put her on a stretcher and pulled her to the top of a hill. Tracy set up a tent and layed Madison inside to rest. She also found antibiotics to give to Madison, assuming she had a lung infection. Days later, Madison woke up. She is proud of Tracy for taking care of her and apologizes for killing Troy. Tracy apologizes for shooting Madison, the only family she has left.
A woman approaches their tent and Tracy pulls out a gun. The woman turns out to be Alicia. She has Skidmark, the cat with her. Alicia heard stories about what Madison did at PADRE to save everyone. So she came to see for herself. She asks her mother how she survived. Madison says Alicia’s daughter, Tracy saved her. Alicia says she never had a kid. Meaning Troy said that to give Madison a reason to fight for Tracy.
Alicia takes them to an overpass where she sees trucks with the word MADRE on the side. She thinks the people in the trucks are the people that Madison saved. While they wait for the trucks, Alicia explains what happened after Troy stabbed her. She went back to where she was staying and saw her fan club. She realized her story was doing more good that she could on her own because the fan club was helping people. So she changed her name and went somewhere else so Troy couldn’t find her.
RELATED: NYCC 2023: Rick Fights to Escape in New Teaser for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
THE ROAD AHEAD
They see the trucks approach and head to a rest stop. The people in the trucks are Luciana, Daniel, June, Dwight, Sherry, and Victor. They are all going in different directions to find people to help. The Alicia Clark fan club will work on the repeater stations so they can all communicate with each other better. Dove, aka Odessa, asks June (Jenna Elfman) if she can travel with her. June is going back to John’s cabin in Texas. Odessa says the trip will give June time to teach her medicine so she can help others.
Dwight and Sherry are going to look for the PADRE kids’ parents. They have to find a place to take them to as well. Dwight suggests they take them to the Sanctuary, but Sherry isn’t so sure. He says they know the place, they know how to defend it and all of the streets are still intact. He says they make it a place that lives up to the name and a place that Finch would be proud of. Sherry agrees.
Daniel admits to Victor that he was wrong. Victor reminds him of the worst parts of himself and he thought people like them couldn’t change. He says he’s tired of war and thanks Victor for saving his family. Victor says Daniel caught him on a good day. Daniel wishes Victor well. Then he hears a cat meowing in the distance and is reunited with Skidmark.
RELATED: Catch up on our coverage of Fear the Walking Dead Here!
WHAT’S NEXT?
Victor says goodbye to Luciana before joining his family. When he gets into the truck there is a lilac inside. No one from the family put it in there. Victor sits in deep thought and Frank says he did everything he could to help Tracy. They will continue to look for her though, in case she wants to be found. Victor looks in his mirror and sees Tracy and Madison … and Alicia. He tries not to cry as his family prepares to move onward.
Madison didn’t reveal herself because she thinks the others will be better off. She doesn’t want to give them a reason not to believe in her. Just like Alicia. They decide to go back to LA and help people. Madison has Nick’s ashes with her. She says it will never be what it was, but that doesn’t mean they can’t start over. The three of them get into their car and can finally move forward.
Stream all episodes of Fear the Walking Dead on AMC+.
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/dark-winds-amc-zahn-mcclarnon-kiowa-gordon/
News Editor, Senior Contributor, and Press Editor. Coordinate breaking news, trailers and press releases. I also contribute reviews, recaps and interviews. Creator of the Indigenerd Wire, a column dedicated to the Indigenous creatives in pop culture.
GGA's resident Indigenerd, a little bit rez, a little bit classy...with a love for all things Star Wars, zombies, science fiction, and Indigenous. My ultimate goal is to start my own podcast.
- INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Recap: (S02E07) I Could Not Prevent It - June 24, 2024
- INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Recap: (S02E06) Like the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Made Light - June 17, 2024
- INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Recap: (S02E05) Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start The Tape - June 10, 2024
