'Fear the Walking Dead' Introduces (But Thankfully Does Not Show) a Zombie Baby

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 25, 2021 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 25, 2021 |

Here’s what happened in this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead: Morgan and Grace — who gave birth to a stillborn baby in a brutal season six episode — are now living in an above-ground submarine with a different baby they just happened to find minutes before Teddy dropped a nuclear bomb. It has probably been six to eight months since the bomb detonated, and Morgan and Grace are having an increasingly difficult time keeping the baby, Mo, nourished from inside the sub. The baby cries. And cries. And cries, to the point that it is uncomfortable to watch the episode because the baby’s cries are so loud and piercing and shrill and constant.

Grace heads out to look for baby formula. She and Morgan determine they have six hours in which they can walk about in the radiation fall-out zone before it becomes dangerous, so everywhere they travel is within a six-hour walking radius of the submarine. Grace, who is still wrecked after the stillbirth and hating her life inside a submarine with an inconsolable baby, is at her wit’s end. She wants to die. Pleads for it, in fact.

After she comes away from her scavenge empty-handed, Morgan unveils a surprise: He’s been busy fixing up a car so that it can drive them far enough to get outside of the radiation zone. They grab the baby, they hop in, and they head out toward Louisianna. Road trip!

En route, they have an accident and meet two people who have clearly been out in the radiation for longer than six hours. They wear bandages over their faces because their faces have basically melted off. They try to abscond with baby Mo because, as we learn, they are suffering from the grief of a lost newborn of their own. Their baby cried so much that the Dad, um, put her out of her misery and stuffed her in a suitcase (we see the suitcase, and we see that something is moving inside of it. The series was kind enough to spare us the visual of a zombie baby).

Let’s say that things do not go well with this couple. They try — and fail — to run off with baby Mo, and when baby Mo won’t stop crying, the Dad nearly kills Mo. Morgan and Grace save the baby, but also learn from the Dad that the radiation zone extends more than six hours in every direction, and so Morgan and Grace have no choice but to return to the submarine.

When they return, they encounter Victor Strand’s right-hand man, who invites Grace and the baby (but specifically not Morgan) to return with him and live in Victor’s compound. Grace not-so-politely declines, leaving Morgan and Grace back at square one, exactly where they were at the beginning of the episode. However, after Victor’s guys leave, baby Mo crawls for the first time, and in doing so, inadvertently uncovers a hatch in the floor containing months worth of food, including powdered milk for the baby. What are the odds?!

The final scene, meanwhile, sees Josiah pulling what appears to be his own decapitated head out of a box, vowing revenge upon Morgan Jones. Josiah is the identical twin brother of Emile, the assassin Virginia paid to kill Morgan last season; he was unsuccessful, which is how his head ended up in a box labeled “Morgan Jones.” As the showrunners explain, they really liked Demetrius Grosse*, the guy who played Emile, and wanted to find a way to bring him back after his brief appearance in season 6. I don’t love the identical twin thing, but I’ll let it slide because, in twenty seasons of The Walking Dead universe, it is the first time they’ve pulled the identical twin stunt to resurrect a character.

Given the fact that Morgan and Grace end the episode exactly where they began (plus a few months of food), revealing that Emile’s brother is determined to kill Morgan Jones is the only plot advancement in the episode.

It was still better than this week’s The Walking Dead: The World Beyond, which is now four agonizing, tedious episodes into its second and final season and hasn’t told us jack sh*t.

*If the name Demetrius Grosse sounds familiar, it’s because he was the recurring actor on The Rookie who Afton Williamson accused of sexual harassment before she exited the series; an internal investigation cleared Grosse.