Fear the Walking Dead 401 season premiere recap: What’s Your Story?

Fear the Walking Dead returns with a brand new look and a very special crossover guest. It’s a whole new apocalypse out there. He’s your recap of “What’s Your Story?”

John, the newcomer played by Garret Dillahunt, is sitting by his campfire reading “Love Story” when he hears a noise in the silence. He calls out to the silence, welcoming someone if he’s alive. Hopefully it isn’t one of the “passed.” He hasn’t talked in a long time, so he doesn’t know if he’s talking loud or not. He hasn’t heard a voice in a while. He says some words that start with the letter P. Pasta. Potable. He has some food if they’re hungry. They can chat. He had a good place about a year ago, with popcorn. He still has some. He reads a lot, since he can’t watch movies. He offers a book to the silence. Sighing, he figures that no one is there. He says that he talked to someone. A woman. She showed up and he let her stay. They were lovers. He wanted to let the silence know because he was hoping that if he said it out loud, he would see the memory. That was nice, because things aren’t good. One of the passed appears and John shoots it. Morgan is behind the

Cue the opening credits. There’s a man at a campfire.

We see Morgan back at the Heap. There’s a knock on the door. It’s Jesus, who tells him not to open the door if he’s going to hit him with the stick. Jesus comes in and notes that it looks like Morgan has settled in. He wants to continue their friendship. They can do this somewhere else. He doesn’t have to stay at the Heap. They fought to protect people Morgan cared about. He should be with them.

Later, there’s another knock. It’s Carol. She asks him to come back to the Kingdom. She knows who he is and she says he belongs with people who care about him.

Morgan is making dinner when he gets another visitor. It’s Rick. He says Morgan can hide, but he can’t run. When Rick comes in he tells Morgan he wouldn’t be there if not for Morgan. He saved Rick’s life when he didn’t have to do that. Rick notes that Morgan might not be shot, but he’s hurt. He doesn’t want Morgan to fall apart again and tells him to come back so they can help him. So many people lived because Morgan helped save Rick in the beginning. Morgan scratches his head and says that’s not him anymore. Rick thinks it is. “You end up with people, one way or another,” Rick says. He’ll always have people knocking at his door. He’s part of their world so he might as well come back with him. Morgan smiles at him. Rick says he can hide, but he can’t run. Rick pats him on the back and leaves. Morgan is alone again.

He packs his belongings up and grabs his stick. Morgan sets out on the road and arrives at an intersection. He hears Rick’s voice. Days pass as he sits there. He says he knows what it is. He gets up and starts walking again. Then he starts running. He knows what he has to do. He needs to leave town.

Morgan finds a car that has gas. He hotwires it and drives off, driving until the gas runs out. Then he starts walking again. He finds another car with a man inside and tries to help him, but the man doesn’t want help. He leaves the supplies and keeps walking.

That brings us back to Morgan’s meeting with John, who wants to know what his story is. John offers him some food. His name is John Dorie, like the fish. John offers Morgan some beans. Morgan declines, but then he offers him some candy. Morgan wants to stay away, but then John sees his bandaged foot. Morgan reveals that he came from back East. He ran all the way. John shows him a gun and asks if he has seen anyone with a gun like his. Morgan wants to leave, but John offers him the back of his truck. Just for the night. Let him have some relief for one night. Morgan accepts, but he leaves before the end of the night.

Morgan is captured by men who want his supplies. John comes to his rescue, but soon they’re surrounded. John apologizes for shooting at them. Their enemies call them Karate Man and the Gunslinger. Things are about to get ugly when a SWAT tank pulls up. It’s “Al” and she heard a gunshot. She likes new people. She notes that they look hungry. She has cup of noodles in the back and will throw in some cigarettes. They know her hand is on the lever, which controls her guns. She tells Leland they have a choice.

Soon they’re driving along. John thanks Althea, who goes by Al, for help. He gives her some candy. She says that Leland has gotten desperate. John asks if she is law enforcement, but she isn’t. Morgan wants to leave, but she says she didn’t rescue them for nothing. They owe her. She pulls up at her ranch. It’s full of trailers and rattlesnkaes. John asks about his truck, but she ignores him. They get out and she asks who wants to go first. John pulls out his gun. She wants to ask them a few questions about who they have seen, who they have met. It’s all for a story. She says she’s a journalist and she has a camera.

The next day John answers her questions. There’s a flag with the number 51 on it. He talks about the mystery woman, Laura, who likes black licorice. Morgan doesn’t want to answer questions, but she says he owes her. He offers her food, but she wants his story. She starts filming and asks what brought him out here. Morgan pauses before saying that he didn’t ask her to save him. He’s going to go, but then John chases him. He calls Morgan a friend, and he gives him some clean socks. He saw Morgan’s old ones and wants to help. John wants to know if Morgan will be ok on his own. That’s when they see Leland and his men.

Leland catches Al off guard. One of his men ambushes John and Morgan. They want Al’s truck. What Leland’s men don’t realize is that Morgan is a master with his stick. John distracts them, getting his gun back, and they attack. Al uses the distraction to get into the truck but Leland pulls her out. Morgan climbs onto one of the trailers and John opens one up, freeing the dead inside. They spill out as Leland tries to drive away, but he has no keys. Al throws them and he runs for it. She grabs some knives and kills the undead as she goes. While Leland searches for the keys he gets bitten by a snake, and then the dead catch him. Morgan gets shot in the leg during his fight, but he keeps going. He knocks the guy off the roof and offers to help him but then the guy punches him and they fall inside. The dead catch him, but Morgan makes it out alive. He has a grenade and he ducks into a bathtub when the building explodes. Al and John find him and they flee together.

Al gets back to the truck and Leland is fighting to stay alive. He says the keys don’t work, but she says they were to her locker. She knocks him under the truck and the dead grab him. John and Morgan are trapped on a truck, so she starts firing. Morgan pulls John down and they both end up under a pile of rotting flesh. John says Al has some “ugly mustard.” She thanks them for their help, and John admits that he didn’t want to kill anyone but he did because Leland was bad.

John asks what the flag with the 51 means. Al says they have been popping up everywhere but no one is there but the dead. John says he calls them the “passed” and Morgan reveals that he calls them Walkers. He says he’ll answer her questions. They pull over and he says he ran, walked and drove here from Virginia. She asks if he was part of a settlement in Virginia. Morgan says that there was Alexandria and The Kingdom, with a King and a pet tiger. She asks if they were good places to live. He says they were good and safe, and he has known some of them for a while. He also says there was a fight. They won. He’d already “left” before he left.

Morgan wants to know how she got the van. He wants to know why she’s asking questions. They saved her in return, so now he doesn’t want to talk anymore. He wants to go, even though he was shot. She asks for one real thing about why he left. “I lose people, and then I lose myself,” he says. They watch as he walks away. 

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Morgan limps along the road once again. His stick doubles as his cane. He spots the car he saw earlier, the one with the supplies in it. When he stops, the Walkers come after him. He limps along and then trips, losing his stick. John is there suddenly, and he kills the dead. John says he was wrong about being on his own. He grabs the stick and offers Morgan his hand, and then Morgan walks away again. He says he needs to know about the Walkers. John takes the heavy backpack and then together they go after the Walker. It’s limping, and when it turns around Morgan sees that it was the man he tried to save. He kills him, and then he buries him.

John and Al watch as Morgan buries him. When they drive away, John says he’s glad they found Morgan. She has more questions, especially about the tiger. John offers Morgan some candy and says Al took him back to the truck but it didn’t start, so now she’s going to help him find Laura. He doesn’t know if he can find her, but he will try.

They drive along until they come upon someone in the road. Morgan says that Al said there aren’t many people around. Al stops, grabs a gun and gives it to Morgan but he won’t take it, saying he doesn’t kill. John says he tries not to kill, which Al wishes had been revealed sooner. “Great moment for both of you to share this fact.”

They get out and find the young woman in the road. She’s struggling to get up. Morgan stays at the van. Al asks if she’s injured. Al asks him to get the first aid kit. They get close, and we see that it’s Alicia. She says there are bad people there. Strand, Nick, and Luciana pop out of the bushes. They have guns on them all. Strand’s finger is on the trigger.

“So what the hell’s your story?” Al asks.

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.