‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Season 4 Midseason Finale ‘No One’s Gone’ Recap: Road to Healing [SPOILERS]

Let’s face it, Fear the Walking Dead Season 4 just turned into a massive WTF-inducing sh*tshow. Tonight’s midseason finale, titled “No One’s Gone,” expertly mirrors the way its parent show started losing viewership traction. It’s been a grueling two-month wait after we finally find out what happened to Madison (Kim Dickens) after the fall of the Stadium (did we really, though?). After last week’s disappointing—not to mention, illogical—episode, the hoo-ha continued well until the midseason finale. I don’t know about most fans, but the show seems to achieve a feat that it hasn’t done before, and that is losing the trickle audience who were left disappointed by The Walking Dead’s last few seasons over the past three years.

Here’s what weirdly went down during Fear the Walking Dead’s midseason finale.

Strangers

“No One’s Gone” opens with Madison sneaking up on a stranger in the woods. She aims her pistol at the stranger and bypasses the traps scattered across the person’s camp. Madison orders the person to surrender his keys but trips on a trap, accidentally shooting the stranger’s soup dinner. When the person turns to face Madison, we see that it’s Al (Maggie Grace), with her SWAT van parked nearby.

Back in the present, Al’s SWAT van is still trapped in the Stadium grounds. A massive horde of Infected surrounds them, just as John (Garrett Dillahunt) drifts in and out of consciousness. Naomi (Jenna Elfman) hollers at Al and Morgan (Lennie) that she needs to get the bullet out and close up John’s wounds. Al hands over the video camera to Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) so she could prepare the van’s weapons. Naomi and Morgan make a run for the Stadium’s infirmary as Al clears a path of Infected using her SWAT van’s machine guns. Just when the pair breaks in, an explosion goes off near the doorway, trapping Naomi and Morgan inside.

Al and Madison

Madison holds Al captive, demanding the real keys to the van. As she moves around looking for the keys, Madison sees the box of videotapes. Al tries to reason and tells Madison that she’s been videotaping people’s stories of the apocalypse. When Madison refuses, Al breaks free and struggles with Madison. Al then gets knocked out. She wakes up to her tapes gone.

Madison drives off with the tapes and video camera with her. That night, she stops at a bridge to view the tapes, hoping that she’ll see either Nick (Frank Dillane) or Alicia’s (Alycia Debnam-Carey) interview. When Madison gets through every tape, she screams in frustration just as an Infected pounds her window. After Madison kills it, Al appears, pointing a rifle at her. Madison gets out, and Al demands to hear her story.

With hands bound, Madison tells Al about how she made a promise to her kids that she wasn’t able to keep. She wanted to build a place for her children that wouldn’t turn them into the person that pointed a gun at Al earlier. Madison then shares a story about how her kids nursed a dead bird back to health, naming it Amina. Madison’s kids wanted the bid to live until it did. She said that this trait was still in them until now.

Al wraps up the interview and writes “Amina” as Madison’s tape title. She never really told Al her and her children’s names. Al then gives Madison a box of chicken ramen as “downpayment” for her story. Al also gave Madison her gun and keys back and wished to know more about her story when Madison finds her children.

The next day, Madison tracks down Strand (Colman Domingo), Luci (Danay Garcia), Nick, and Alicia holed up in a motel. Madison hands Strand the box of ramen, to his puzzlement. Later, Madison brought them to the Stadium and vowed to start a new life there as they take in more survivors. Inspired by Al’s noble actions, Madison sees a bright future for them all.

The Standoff

Back in the present, Charlie shows Al the group of Strand, Alicia, and Luci near the Stadium bleachers. It was Alicia who fired an RPG to trap Naomi and Morgan inside. Alicia and her group open fires at the SWAT van. Al is outnumbered.

Richard Foreman Jr/AMC

Meanwhile, Morgan and Naomi fight through Infected in the tunnels leading to the infirmary. Back at the field, Strand suggests going after Morgan and Naomi in the tunnels. However, Alicia has a different plan. Inside the van, John passes out. Both Charlie and Al panic, but Noami instructs them to apply pressure on John’s wound via radio. Another explosion rocks the van, as Alicia just launched another RPG. The side door falls out, and Alicia points a gun at Al.

Alicia climbs up inside the van and threatens to kill Charlie if Al doesn’t tell Naomi and Morgan that it’s safe to come outside. Strand and Luci aim their rifles at the tunnel exit. Al signals Morgan and Naomi to come out. But Al tries to bargain with Alicia as John sneaks his hand to the walkie, allowing the two to hear the commotion inside the van. It’s a trap.

Richard Foreman Jr/AMC

Seeing no one coming out of the tunnel, Strand tells Alicia that the two haven’t come out yet. Seeing the walkie beside John, Alicia gets distracted as Al attacks her. A fight ensues. Charlie then urges Naomi and Morgan to hurry up as John seems to be losing more blood by the second.

As Al knocks Alicia over, a pack of chicken ramen falls out. Seeing this, Alicia demands to know where Al got them, and she tells Alicia that she got them for an interview. Alicia then rummages through Al’s tapes and sees one labeled “Amina,” the bird she and Nick nursed back to health. Alicia watches the video and tears up just when Madison speaks into the camera that she will do whatever it takes to make sure her children’s humanity is intact.

Meanwhile, Morgan sees no other way to help John. So he takes the pack of medicine from Naomi and heads out since Alicia’s group has no beef with him. Alicia appears in the tunnel opening and points a gun at Naomi, convinced that she was the reason for Madison’s death. Morgan stands between the weapon and Naomi and tells Alicia that he will not stand aside, just like how he did when Nick got shot by Charlie. Finally, Alicia breaks down and hands over the gun to Morgan.

Richard Foreman Jr/AMC

Al drives away from the Stadium with everyone on board and asks Alicia about Madison. They pull over and set up camp so they could tell Al about the final days of the Stadium. Meanwhile, Naomi finally reveals her real name to John—it’s June.

Apparently, Madison fought hard to bring back Nick and Alicia from the Infected horde of the last episode. They clear a path so Alicia can drive through. Mel, on the other hand, escaped with Charlie. As the Infected gain momentum, some of the Stadium residents drive away, only to die at the hands of the horde.

Richard Foreman Jr/AMC

June then tells Al that the residents escaped while she was gathering supplies in the infirmary. She also thought everyone was dead, that’s why June joined the Vultures. Alicia then continues her story where Madison lit up a flare to lead the Infected inside the stadium. Seeing no way out, she locked herself inside and set the oil-soaked horde on fire. Nick, Alicia, Strand, and Luci gape in horror and sorrow as they drive away from the fiery Stadium.

Alica ends her story by telling Al that Madison killed herself so they could live. Madison pops the tape out and writes “Madison” as its label. Strand then gathers the heated ramen and distributes it to the entire group. They then eat in silence.

Richard Foreman Jr/AMC

‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Midseason Finale Overall Verdict

It’s odd how “No One’s Gone” wraps up the first half of Fear the Walking Dead. There could have been many logical ways that Alicia could have escaped with her mom after the Stadium fell. But apparently, due to sloppy and tasteless writing, the episode just went with Madison doing Chariots of Fire as she led the Infected to a trap. Ever since this season started, one couldn’t help but wonder why all the characters weren’t mentioning any of the events of the dam explosion in Season 3. True, Madison might have brushed through some locations like Los Angeles and New Mexico, but the Ranch and Dam were the key moments that shaped Fear into what it should be. I honestly think that this season is a disservice to everything that the group has been through, and although Al, June, John, and Morgan are good additions to the show, it would have worked better if they carried on with the storyline.

Now the question remains about Madison—is she or is she not dead? That, my friends, is a classic case of “Gimpleing.” The sad thing about it? It has only just begun.

Fear the Walking Dead returns Sunday, August 12th at 9/8c on AMC.