Fear the Walking Dead Delivers Heartbreaking Update on Dwight’s Search for Sherry

Fear the Walking Dead 506, “The Little Prince,” revealed a discouraging update in Dwight’s (Austin Amelio) search for disappeared wife Sherry (Christine Evangelista).

In a picked-over diner, Dwight and John (Garret Dillahunt) come across a gunned down corpse Dwight recognizes from his earlier travels. John spots the faded word “honey” on a conspicuously hanging guest check, recognizing the term of endearment is one frequently used by Sherry in her note trail that guided Dwight from Virginia to Texas.

Using a trick he learned in a Cary Grant movie, former cop John scribbles on a left behind notepad, uncovering traces of Sherry’s full message. The note, signed with Sherry’s same “infinity” symbol, reveals a storm forced her off 30. Dwight realizes he’s been searching the wrong road.

It’s a desperately needed step in the right direction for Dwight, who hit his low point and nearly committed suicide at Humbug’s Gulch after Sherry’s trail went cold.

A note marked “west on 30” leads Dwight and John to a dilapidated building, where Dwight successfully matches a vehicle registration paper against the identification number on an abandoned car. She was here.

Dwight heads inside, leaving John to check the car, where he finds another note in the upper glove compartment. John reads the letter to himself and grows more and more disheartened with each word.

“D, I had to kill someone. A man back at that diner. He almost killed me,” the letter reads.

“I knew we’ve both seen so much, too much, but I still don’t like the thought of you out there looking for me in all that death. I don’t want that for you, D. I don’t want you to kill yourself trying to find me. I wouldn’t be able to live with that. So I want you to stop looking for me if you’re still looking. I know that I gave you hope, but now I want to give you a chance. I’m getting out of this place, and so should you. This will be my last letter. Even though this is the end of us, please don’t let this be the end for you too. Find something to live for and live. I love you forever. Honey.”

Reconnecting with John, a beaming Dwight reports no sign of Sherry, but a cache of food and supplies indicates they’re on the right track.

“Look, you said when you met the others, that’s when things started to click with you finding June. She’s close, I know it,” a glowing Dwight says. “If she had taken off, she would have left a letter, like she always does.”

When he asks if John found anything in the car, the gunslinger hangs his head. “No,” he lies. “Nothing.”

“Thank you,” Dwight says. “This is the closest I’ve been to finding Sherry in a long time. This is everything.”

Though Dwight’s year-long search for Sherry appears to have reached its fruitless end, he found something else linking up with John and the altruistic crew now led by Morgan (Lennie James).

“He doesn’t think there’s any place for him to go. He’s suicidal, frankly. And he’s fortunate enough to come across John Dorie and June, who’ve got this incredibly hopeful story that we saw play out over season 4,” co-showrunner Ian Goldberg previously told EW.

“And there are people who are able to bring him out of his funk and to give him a reason to keep going. That was really exciting to us. And like everyone else in the group — from Morgan to Alicia, Dorie, June, really everyone in our group — Dwight’s someone who has things to make up for, and now he’s found a new family that he’s going to be able to do that with. And it’s going to be a challenge for him. But we’re going to see a different side to Dwight than we saw for a lot of The Walking Dead.”

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.