‘Fear the Walking Dead’: Where Things Left Off in Season 4

Lawrence Yee
TV Sci-Fi
TV Sci-Fi The Walking Dead

Fear the Walking Dead hasn’t been afraid to change things up in its fourth season.

The first half of the season saw a location change from Mexico to Texas, a significant time jump, a crossover character from The Walking Dead, and a handful of new faces. Most importantly, two original characters — Madison Clark and her son Nicholas — were shockingly killed off. Their deaths fueled the first half of the season, and led the survivors to where they are ahead of Sunday’s midseason premiere.

The first half of Season 4 unfolded across two timelines: one set in the past where Madison finally created a home at an abandoned baseball diamond; the other the survivor’s current revenge-fueled search for the Vultures — the gang responsible for destroying the same diamond.

The season hopped back and forth between past and present, but focused primarily on Alicia, Strand, Nick, and Luci’s search for the Vultures. Along the way, they ran into Morgan, Al, and John Dorie — the fresh new faces of Fear. Morgan is the same reluctant warrior we knew from TWD, Al is a journalist who travels around in a SWAT truck and exchanges help for survivor stories, and John Dorie — the most polite gunslinger in Texas — is searching for a woman he fell in love with.

Morgan helped Nick find peace before he was murdered.

The two groups were hesitant of each other at first. It was Morgan and Nick that first began opening up to each other as kindred spirits. They’d both let the way the world had become turn them into something violent and mean in the past. Their bonding was cut short. Nick was gunned down by Charlie — a young girl who lived in the Diamond earlier and tricked Madison. She originally led the Vultures to the haven.

Nick’s sudden death rallied the groups to work together to search for the Vultures. Eventually, their paths collided and it was revealed that Naomi — another woman from the Diamond — was part of the Vultures. She also happened to be the woman John Dorie was looking for. Naomi’s appearance divided the group. Alicia, Strand, and Luci wanted Naomi dead for betraying them, but John wanted to save his former love. The group managed to take out most of the Vultures, but in the process, John was shot protecting Naomi.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 4 Madison
Madison sacrificed herself so that her children could live.

Morgan, Al, Naomi, and John raced to the Diamond in the SWAT truck to get abandoned meds for the wound. Alicia, Strand, and Luci followed. The Diamond was full of burned dead. Flashbacks revealed Madison had sacrificed herself and burned most of the dead inside the diamond to let her family and the other residents escape.

Morgan was able to talk Alicia and the others from killing Naomi so she could save John. Naomi explains she never betrayed Madison. She thought everyone had died so she joined the Vultures because she had nowhere else to go.

Alicia learned that Al actually met Madison on the road in the past, and gave her much-needed food in the form of ramen. Realizing that without Al’s help that Madison would’ve never reunited with her family, Alicia buried the hatchet. The midseason finale ended with the group sharing ramen noodles around a fire on a Texas night.

The midseason premiere of Fear the Walking Dead premieres this Sunday, August 12.

Lawrence Yee
Lawrence is Editor in Chief of FANDOM. He grew up loving X-Men, Transformers, and Japanese-style role playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. First-person shooters make him incredibly nauseous.