Seven years ago, Madison helped Morgan overpower the PADRE guards and rescue Mo. She paid for that by being thrown in prison. Now, with the help of Wren (Zoey Merchant), a young teenager who wants to go to the mainland, Madison escapes.

Fear The Walking Dead has always been the most courageous of the franchise in narrative terms, and I say that knowing full well just how great the time loop episode of Tales of the Walking Dead is. This final season though has removed Fear’s last remaining fetters and the show is swinging for the fences from the start.

Wren is, of course, Mo and we’re allowed to figure that out at about the same speed she does. Merchant has a thankless task here: be new, be interesting, be broken and be tragic and she pulls all of it off with a presence and strength that’s as natural as it is impressive. Her repeated flashbacks to the moment she was given to PADRE are very nicely handled and it’s especially interesting that the show seems to be taking its time hitting the reveals about those missing seven years. As we find out, both Morgan and Grace work for the group now too and its surely no accident that the primary technique Wren is taught for taking down ‘Carrion’ is the exact staff fighting style her father uses. She makes tough choices, feels the cost of all of them and keeps going, because what else can she do? She’s the embodiment of the antithesis of what the end of the last season promised; freedom. I can’t wait to see how she deals with that.

Elsewhere in the case Lennie James and Kim Dickens continue to have no idea how to turn in bad work. Madison and Morgan are like elevators passing in opposite directions – one learning to fight at the same time the other has given up – and their sparky relationship is the friction that drives much of the episode. Karen David as Grace is excellent too and her scenes with James show us the shape of what the seven years apart have been, even if we don’t know the specifics yet.

Verdict: This is an audacious opening for a show that’s always revelled in that. The PADRE sets are great, the design of the show and the direction never falters and the cast are top notch. I am curious about how the new characters and status quo fit in but honestly Fear has reinvented itself essentially annually throughout its run. They’re good at this and this episode proves it, yet again. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart