‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Season 4, Episode 11 ‘The Code’ Recap: Rounding Up a New Crew

We get it, Morgan Jones (Lennie James) is a critical character in AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. But tonight’s episode, titled “The Code,” seems to have forgotten what makes him a good character in the first place. As we get another solo Morgan episode, we are also introduced to three newcomers—Sarah (Mo Collins), Wendell (Daryl Mitchell), and beer man Jim (Aaron Stanford). Last week, it was teased by co-showrunner Ian Goldberg that this episode will feature a lighter, comedic tone, but it wasn’t even seen in “The Code” to begin with. But before I ramble on with how randomly weird tonight’s Fear the Walking Dead is, let’s get into the lowdown of what happened.

Derailed

“The Code’s” opening sequence jacks it to uber-rich screentime for Morgan. Right after Alicia leaves him in the rain, he sets off looking for her. He doesn’t find her, so he takes refuge in an abandoned truck filled with boxes of supplies. Incidentally, each box has the same instructions that Al (Maggie Grace) and June (Jenna Elfman) saw when they were scouting the bridge area. “Take what you need. Leave what you don’t. See you further on up the road,” the box read. Now, I don’t know if FearTWD is going for a more cryptic second half this season, but this shit is starting to get a bit annoying.

Morgan wakes up to the sound of an Infected banging on the truck’s door. He kills it and suddenly finds himself at a truck stop in Mississipi (don’t ask me how he got there undisturbed from his sleep because I’ve been wondering about the same thing too). Morgan steps out and sees a mini-mart, so he does the smart thing and takes what he need. A woman’s voice also blasts from a radio transmitter. Morgan tells her that he found the truck and somehow got stuck in Mississipi. The woman echoes the words in the boxes.

Ryan Green/AMC

So that’s exactly what Morgan does, only to be cut short when he hears a shotgun click outside the bathroom where he’s taking a dump (was this supposed to be a funny scene?).

“Keep on Truckin’!”

Morgan opens the bathroom door to see a man in a wheelchair pointing the shotgun at him. Seeing what Morgan took from the mini-mart, the man takes his bag and sits him down for an interrogation. Morgan tells him about a woman on the radio just as that same woman comes marching in the room. It turns out that wheelchair dude is named Wendell, and Sarah is the radio girl. Oh, and you know what’s funny? These two claim to be twins. The hell they are.

Ryan Green/AMC

Wendell and Sarah then give Morgan a mini-tour of the place, where it’s revealed that several trucks with supplies are parked nearby. Morgan tells them about Alexandria in Virginia and how he needs to get back to help them. And since Sarah and Wendell are good folks who have a code of helping others when they need it (we “keep on truckin’!”), they give Morgan some supplies and a car so he can travel back to Virginia.

Morgan drives away but encounters a roadblock. He starts to walk, but the guilt of leaving these good people and his new friends for Alexandria seems a bit too cowardly for him. He goes back, radios in Sarah and says that he needs a ride because the bridge he was supposed to cross was destroyed by the hurricane even though it wasn’t. That’s when things start to go bonkers.

Morgan learns the truth

One would think that it’s cool how the show still manages to introduce new inherently good characters in Fear the Walking Dead. I mean, that’s why Sarah and Wendell are here, right? They’re coming along the Morgan kumbaya parade so they can all have a happy life in the midst of Walkers/Infected/whatever the hell you want to call them, right? Nope. It also turns out that Sarah and Wendell are nothing but lying pricks who only want the best for themselves. And they’re not even truckers. They’re just pretending to be one since they stole the truck full of supplies from a man who was leaving these random boxes in road markers.

As Morgan returns to the truck stop, he finds Sarah and Wendell gone. Sarah tells Morgan on the radio to meet them somewhere, so he drives there. While on a stopover, Morgan sees a man with a sack on his head running from a small group of Infected, so he goes over to help. The man, named Jim, doesn’t even thank the guy, but Morgan tells him to come with to Alexandria. Apparently, Jim was kidnapped by some people for his beer recipes. Jim is a beer brewer, and his love for the beverage is borderline weird and overly patronizing.

Ryan Green/AMC

The two arrive at the meeting spot. When Sarah and Wendell go out to meet them, Jim runs away. Sarah and Wendell are the beer man kidnappers. They then tie Jim and Morgan up and demand Alexandria’s location from Morgan. When he stays silent, the “twins” decide to drive on, thinking that Morgan would eventually change his mind.

Cutting the deal

During the drive, Jim goes on a litany of why beer is the future and currency of everything. This is where the episode loses its shit and just goes haywire. Who in the actual hell cares about beer in a world where food and water are scarce? Jim seems to be out of his mind. He then begs Morgan to reveal where Alexandria is so they can all get over this minor hoo-ha. Then, the truck stops.

Sarah tells Jim and Morgan that their load is too heavy to get out of the cracked asphalt, so they need to unpack. Sarah proceeds to do so and cuts off Jim’s bonds when he agrees to make beer for them finally. Morgan, on the other hand, stays silent and refuses to disclose Alexandria’s location. Jim tries to help Sarah unpack but accidentally bumps into Morgan, sending him falling off a ravine.

A horde of Infected swarm him, so Morgan climbs up on top of a car. Morgan asks them to help him, but Sarah would only do so if he’d spill Alexandria’s location. Morgan finally gives, but they still opted to leave him, thinking that Morgan could still manage to save himself without their help.

Ryan Green/AMC

Morgan stays on top of the car ’til nighttime. Frustrated, he radios to Sarah, begging for them to return so he can help his friends in Texas. He admits that he was a coward for always running away when shit hits the fan but gets no response. As a last resort, Morgan leaps off the car, finds a box with a knife, cuts himself free, and fights his way out of the ravine.

Ryan Green/AMC

The next day, Morgan walks to the same bridge he called “destroyed” and sees Sarah and Wendell waiting for him. It’s revealed that Morgan gave them false directions to Alexandria. That’s when Morgan brokers a deal—he’ll take them there, but they have to go back to Texas so Morgan could pick up Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and the gang. As they drive back, the group also leave supply boxes at various markers. Morgan also blasts a radio broadcast intended to tell the truck owner that they’re coming for him so they can return his vehicle.

The episode ends with a woman receiving Morgan’s message in the truck stop. She chuckles, writes “take what you need, leave what you want” on an Infected’s face, and proceeds to follow Morgan and his new group to Texas.

Ryan Green/AMC

‘Fear the Walking Dead: The Code’ Overall Verdict

What in the hell just happened here? I have no idea what Sarah and Wendell’s deal are, and I don’t get Jim’s exaggerated fascination with beer. It could have worked as a Morgan episode had they make him go through another round of psychological battles with himself, but instead, they chose to usher in new random characters who don’t even know what they’re doing. Now it’s hard to choose between “People Like Us” and “The Code” as the worst Fear the Walking Dead episode ever. My hate watch is growing more intense every week, so here’s to still hoping that next week’s episode lets up a bit more.

Fear the Walking Dead continues next Sunday, September 2nd, with “Weak” at 9/8c on AMC. Watch the preview below: