SPOILER ALERT: Warning, this article contains spoilers from the Season 4, Episode 5 of Fear the Walking Dead entitled ‘Laura.’ Proceed at your own risk.
After last week’s revenge-fueled episode, Fear the Walking Dead’s fifth episode took a step back to collect itself and reveal the backstory of the nicest gunslinger in the apocalypse: John Dorie.
John had it made for a long time apparently. He had a quaint little cabin, electricity to power a TV and VCR, and he spent a lot of his day thinking of the perfect word to play on the Scrabble board. But it was awfully lonely. At least, until Laura/Naomi washed up in the lake that served as his front yard.
Turns out, Laura and John didn’t know each other before the apocalypse. John pulled her out of the water and sewed her up. She decides to stay until she has the strength to head back out on her own. Laura isn’t even a name Naomi gives John to keep him distant, it’s something John gives her until she’s ready to tell him her real name.
After a few days of awkward small talk, the two head to a general store via canoe to stock up. On the way, they find that a hole in a bridge’s guardrail is why zombies keep washing up in front of John’s place. They patch the hole and head back to enjoy the latest VHS John borrowed from the store – he still writes his name on a clipboard for every movie he checks out. After the movie, Laura reveals to John that she lost her child.
The two get closer. John teaches her to fish and how to clean it. They play Scrabble. They fall into a rhythm. Walkers keep showing up so they decide to head back to the bridge and reinforce their work with a car. There are quite a few of the dead at the bridge when they get there and John notices Laura took one of his revolvers – which he obsessively cleans but never brings with him. He takes it from her, yelling, “I want them in a box. I don’t want them out here.”
The two clear the zombies, but there is a close call where John is nearly killed because he won’t use the gun. Afterwards, he explains why. Apparently, back when John was a cop, he tried to stop a robbery. The man wouldn’t drop his gun and John went to wing his leg with a bullet. The robber turned as John fired, and the bullet hit him in the middle of the leg. He bled out.
Laura asks if that is why he moved out to this cabin. John informs her he moved because everyone treated him like he was a hero.
Their bonding is interrupted again when a small heard of zombies – that managed to bust through all their careful bridge work – show up outside. The two try to fight them off, but when Laura is knocked to the ground John finally dusts off those gunslinger skills and clears the dead from her. The next morning he gives her one of the revolvers. She’s planning on leaving soon, and he wants her to have it.
That night, Laura sits down for a movie and John decides he’d rather sit alone on the porch. John, a bit ashamed, says it’s because he loves her and doesn’t want her to go. He even offers to let her stay in his cabin and he’ll leave.
“I need you alive,” he says. “If you’re alive this whole world feels alive.”
What a guy.
The two have sex, and the next morning John wakes up and Laura’s gone – but not before telling him she loves him too via Scrabble.
