Fear the Walking Dead’s Midseason Finale Sets up Rick Grimes’ Return

Enlisting the help of Morgan and Grace’s stolen daughter Mo, Madison has a change of heart and strives to reconnect Mo with her parents. This leads to the reveal that Morgan and Grace have been working for PADRE as well, with Mo’s safety leveraged against them for seven long years. Similarly, Dwight and Sherry have also been blackmailed into service, with their son Finch’s life on the line.

Much of the last season, the parents at the center of this drama – Morgan and Grace, Dwight and Sherry – have swung wildly between choosing to fight for their family’s right to stay together and telling their children that they’re incapable of protecting them and they must return to PADRE. As the organization openly uses the love they feel for their children as a weapon against them, Morgan is again reduced to the mentally fragile and dangerously paranoid state he was in when we first met him, which only escalated when he lost his son Duane.

Morgan Heads Off to Find Rick Grimes

As of the mid-season finale, PADRE, which is revealed to quite literally be two siblings in a trench coat loosely posing as their father, has fallen. Madison is working with Daniel and the parents of the children who were stolen to reunite families. Meanwhile, Morgan and Mo put Grace to rest, with Morgan using his radio to put out the call that he’s looking for a man named Rick Grimes.

Back in the TWD finale, we saw that Rick has his own problems with a shady military organization as he seemingly attempts to flee a looming helicopter only to be dragged back in, we assume by the nefarious Civic Republic Military (CRM) that was partially explored in The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Still, he is able to leave a clue to his whereabouts behind, which Michonne (Danai Gurira) eventually found. As of “All I See is Red,” we know that both Michonne and now Morgan are hot on Rick’s trail. Whether this will lead to a Rick or Michonne appearance in the last round of FTWD episodes, it’s impossible to say, but as of now, the groundwork is there.

Rick and Morgan’s Timeless Friendship

Rick and Morgan first met with Morgan smacking Rick on the head with a shovel back in TWD’s first season. Eventually, Morgan warms to Rick, revealing that he is allowing the undead corpse of his beloved wife to wander the streets due to his inability to put her down. This leads to his son Duane eventually being attacked and turned by his mother, at which time Morgan chains Duane in the attic and leaves him there. When Morgan and Rick reunite, Morgan is hanging on by a thread, but Rick is able to offer him a sense of community.

Over time, this has developed into one of the great friendships of TWD. As each of them have struggled against the horrors of their lives and the impact it has had on their own moral values, they’ve served as crucial counterparts to one another. While they have often been forced to go in very different directions, their paths seem to keep crossing despite it all.