Morgan is losing himself, driven to insanity by the loss of Grace. Madison rescues him from the train car and, barely conscious for long periods, Morgan sets off to find Mo.

This honestly feels like the series finale, and for the most part it’s a very good one. Centring Morgan and Mo makes a ton of sense and Lennie James and Zoey Merchant are a brilliant double act despite how little time they’ve actually spent on screen together. There’s a scene here where Morgan is tied to the side of the flooding houseboat begging his daughter to run as the Carrion sweep in and Mo kills them with a pen knife. Despite how long running the show is, despite how important these people are to the show, you really wonder whether they’ll make it out. Veteran director Michael E. Satrazemis does a great job with the visual language too, the ‘red jumps’ moving us down the story with the same frantic momentum as Morgan.

That sense of jeopardy is what carries the episode through the sprints that have become a common part of the season. Daniel’s arc so far has been nothing more than glorified Security and that doesn’t change here. Similarly Madison feels oddly sidelined although that at least is understandable given the focus the show has had to have.

But for each one of these weird moments of shorthand, there are moments where the episode has space and strength. Madison inheriting PADRE is a particularly lovely moment that speaks to just how hard fought the pragmatism of the main characters is. It would be so easy to finish this plot, and possibly series, with Madison at the head of an army of gifted child soldiers with functionally unlimited resources. Having her choose instead to rebuild PADRE, to make a foundation strong before building anything on it may be the driving arc of the entire show.

All of which brings us back to Morgan. Broken by everything he’s done and had done to him but rebuilt by his own determination and the love of the people around him. The final scene here, where he returns to Eastman’s cabin from way back in Season 6 of The Walking Dead’s ‘Here’s Not Here’ before heading off to find Rick, is the bookend the character has so richly deserved for years. He doesn’t know if Rick’s still alive. We don’t know if he’ll find him. All we do know is that Morgan knows how to use his time, and this is the best way to do that. The entire scene is great but the little flashbacks of everyone Morgan has lost, but carries with him will straight up end you like it did me.

There’s a bookend scene to this with Dwight and Sherry too, whose role here is to watch their son die and somehow keep going. Dwight, who has been one of the show’s hardest travelling heroes for years, makes the choice for them to break up and it breaks your heart all over again. Not just because of what they’ve been through but how from their point of view, this latest terrible choice makes sense. And then, there’s the ending. A stranger hears Madison’s message about the new age of PADRE and packs up to go to the coordinates Madison broadcasts. He takes Strand’s sunglasses and Alicia’s prosthetic arm with him.

If you want to dig into it, you’ll find out who this is. It speaks, definitively, to the second half of the season being the story Madison needs, just as this was what Morgan needed. For him it’s about learning people who die don’t leave him unless he lets them. For her, it’s reckoning with arguably her biggest mistake.

I have no idea if we’ll see Morgan again in this show. I suspect not. I do know James has left Fear and seems very likely to show up in one of the other shows. And more importantly for Fear I know Madison’s foundation is going to be tested to breaking point by what’s coming.

Verdict: Those last six episodes are going to be a hell of a ride and I look forward to it. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart