The episode starts with John calmly cleaning his revolver. In the distance, he hears a walker emerging from water, puts the gun down, and uses a board to walk across a little canal to get close enough to kill it with a shovel.
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The Fear the Walking Dead opening credits play.
In the past sometime, John lives alone and plays Scrabble by himself. He makes coffee and eggs and makes a little bit of conversation to himself. He heads outside with his breakfast and then does chores around the house, saying words to himself.
At night, he watches an old film while eating before putting himself to bed alone. During the night, though, he hears something, and wanders out into the pond. He comes upon Naomi, or Laura, as he knew her. He carries her inside. “We have to get back,” she is trying to say, but he assures her she is safe. After pulling her shirt up a bit, he sees a gash in her side. He apologizes for the pain she will feel but tries to take care of it.
Ultimately, she falls asleep in his bed and he waits elsewhere, leaving candy on the nightstand for her.
The next day, he finds her trying to steal his truck. He helps by telling her the keys are in the visor, before elaborating that he tried to help her last night. The truck, however, doesn’t start. It needs a new battery. “I’ve been meaning to attend to that,” he tells he, offering to change her battery and load her up on food and water before she goes.
Continued
Later, John tries to sew up Laura’s wound by using a fishing hook and string to stitch it.
That night, John proudly serves up “fish stew.” John introduces himself but she doesn’t share her name with him. He says she looks like a Laura and she accepts that name as an acceptable substitute. “I used to work at Humbug Oats on the weekends,” he tells her. It was a wild west show he did for fun to entertain people. He’s very hospitable for her.
John reveals he made some privacy for her but she insists she isn’t staying. He tells her he doesn’t sleep more than two hours a night anymore, though he used to. Amidst the conversation, Laura closes the curtain he made for her.
Later in the night, she wakes up to the sound of John cleaning his gun. She sees the two revolvers before slipping away from the door frame.
Continued
The next day, John awakens in his hammock to put down more walkers which had approached. After finishing two of them, Laura emerges to ask if they just all wash up here. On Tuesday’s, he goes to the store, and she wants to come with him this time.
He won’t mind the company so he allows her to come along, offering a big pair of boots for protection. She, however, wants to be able to run if she needs to, and seems to be nervous about someone who might approach.
John steers them down the river on a boat. She starts asking him questions. He’s been out here long. He was a police officer before the fall. He enjoyed being a cop “for a time.” As they come under a bridge, Laura realizes a break in the fence is allowing walkers to fall into the water.
They dock the boat and head to the store.
Continued
John explains this was Bill’s place. It’s been in the family for 60 years. He’s not sure where Bill is these days. The road was closed for repairs just before the fall and he hasn’t seen anyone since.
The store is stocked fairly well. He tells her to take whatever she wants, but there are no shopping carts. John takes a hammer while Naomi loads up on tape, rulers, and dressings. She is preparing for when she needs to help people. John takes a movie every time he comes and signs it out on the rental sheet.
She sees his name is John Dorie, which he emphasizes is spelt with an “I-E” and not a “Y” but pronounced like the fish. “Like the fish, and you like fishing?” she asks. Yeah.
Outside, John sees the roof over the gas station as an opportunity to repair the bridge. As they do, Laura reiterates that she won’t be staying much longer.
Continued
That night, Laura wakes up to the sound of John’s movie. He says Tuesday is his movie night but every night is really his movie night these days. He turns the volume down because he knows what the characters are going to say, having seen it so many times. Laura isn’t interested in any popcorn despite his offer.
They awkwardly sit on opposite ends of the couch. He likes to melt his butterscotch and caramel to make a brittle.
He eventually passes out on the couch and wakes up to see Laura looking at him. She is emotional. “I lost my child,” she tells him before returning to her bed.
Continued
The next day, Laura wants to learn how to fish. Out in the water, he teaches her how to cast a line. She ends up catching the fish which will be their dinner. She says, over dinner, that this will come in handy out there. He’s not happy about the thought of her leaving. As they play Scrabble together, he grins with joy.
Time passes. She continues to fish and has learned to prepare them herself. He continues to get water supplies but the empty boots on the porch have his attention.
Later, he cuts the stitches off of her and she rules that it’s time to head out. He agrees, transparently in disagreement, before he is summoned to kill a walker which has washed up. She wants to help patch up John’s bridge, hopeful there is a car with a charge nearby.
Continued
At the bridge, she reveals she learned to hotwire cars at a previous camp. When he sees that she took one his guns, he gets very outwardly frustrated. He wants them in a box and not out here. Together, they hack down all of the walkers on the bridge.
After the push a Jeep to block the hole in the fence, a walker with a machete lodged in its chest approaches. Laura calls out for him to shoot it but he won’t use those guns. He uses a knife to smash its skull and both of them end up covered in its blood.
Later, Laura questions why he won’t use the guns. She realizes this might have something to do with why he doesn’t like talking about being a cop. “I fired it,” he tells her. “I guess you’d call him a bad guy.” He says it’s not that simple of being a mistake or intentional. “It was an intentional mistake,” he tells her. A guy was robbing a gas station after one of his shows. The man did not oblige. “I tried to clip him in the leg,” he says. “No, it’s not okay. He turned. I hit him dead center in that leg and he bled out.”
Laura asks if this is why he moved up here but it’s not. “People thought I was a hero,” John said.
“Doesn’t matter how many people say it’s not your fault,” she adds. “Only thing that matters is if you believe it.” He agrees with that statement but she is referencing the loss of her daughter.
Continued
At night, walkers have piled up on the Jeep parked on the bridge. It starts to roll out of the way and they start to fall into the water.
John wakes up to find the herd approaching his house. He calls for Laura after seeing it. There are dozens approaching, some falling into his trench trap. With and axe, he tries to hold them off. Laura joins, too, using a shovel. Eventually, the walkers just start walking on one another to get over the trench. Laura and John are surrounded. As John sees Laura has almost no hope of escape, he pulls out his guns and takes them all out with ease.
After she sees that he has saved her, he twirls his guns and holsters them.
Later, Laura thanks him, calls him a hero, and tells him he is an honorable person. “I’m very, very lucky to have washed up in your front yard,” she tells him.
John offers her one of the guns, since she insists on leaving. Later, they sit on the couch, closer together than before, but he goes to sit on the porch. She knows something is wrong. He won’t look at her. She follows him. “I love you,” he tells her. “I love you and I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why didn’t you want me to know?” she asks.
“Because, you’re gonna leave, and I don’t want you to,” he tells her. “I don’t want you to! You wanna be alone? I’ll leave. You stay. I need you alive. When you’re alive, this whole world feels alive.”
She jumps into his arms and kisses arm.
The next day, John wakes up to his bass fish alarm. His bed is empty. He looks for Laura but doesn’t find her. On the front porch are her shoes, replacing the boots he insisted she wear.
He comes inside to find the scrabble board with a note made out of the pieces. “I love you too,” it says. “I’m sorry.”
In the present timeline, John sits with Morgan, holding those Scrabble pieces.
“She loved you,” Morgan asks him.
“Yes,” John said. “Maybe if I waited to tell her…”
“No, there is no waiting,” Morgan said. “Not in this world. Waiting. That’s how you lose people.”
“It’s stupid to say,” John rules. “But I believed we’d have a second chance. Stupid.”
Morgan, however, believes there is a chance at starting over, besides just killing and revenge like Alicia and Strand currently do. John thinks he might believe what Alicia and Strand do but Morgan questions him and he admits it’s wrong. “We’re alive,” Morgan says. “We are part of the world. Let’s not waste another second.”
The two stand up together, John twirling and holstering his gun, and begin a new journey.
