Rick Grimes Helicopter Connection Deepens in Fear the Walking Dead 505 Sneak Peek

The abducted Althea (Maggie Grace) makes contact with someone in a sneak peek look at Fear the Walking Dead 505, "The End of Everything." Per its official synopsis:

Althea chases a story with dogged determination, putting the mission, and her life in danger.

Al has been missing since her abduction by a mysterious, black-clad assailant in the Fear Season 5 premiere, where Al uncovered a conspiracy tied to the same group that will abduct Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) roughly seven months in the future.

A helicopter, branded with the same three-ring logo seen on the helicopter connected to Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh), surfaced yet again in Sunday's Fear 504, "Skidmark," to the surprise of Morgan (Lennie James) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey).

The Al-focused 505 sees the investigative journalist come across a helicopter and, when stepping into its seemingly abandoned cockpit, Al makes brief contact with a muffled voice that comes over the radio. She's then caught off guard by Isabelle (Sydney Lemmon), who orders Al out of the helicopter at gun point.

"We will learn a lot more about that symbol and the soldier, and it may have some lasting effects on a character on the show," co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss previously teased on Talking Dead after Al found a reanimated soldier clad in the same black armor worn by Isabelle.

At the ATX Television festival earlier this month, co-showrunner Ian Goldberg said it would be "very disappointing if we didn't follow up" on the helicopter group and the ties to the wider Walking Dead Universe.

Walking Dead chief content officer and Fear executive producer Scott Gimple earlier hinted at the inclusion of the helicopter group in a recent interview, saying the two shows would connect in a specific way beyond the inclusion of TWD's Dwight (Austin Amelio).

"Dwight is the thing they have in common, most recently," Gimple said. "There's a little thing that turns into kind of a big thing that connects to something outside of both shows which people will be seeing. But, you know, they're two different shows. Two crazy different shows in a lot of ways."

That outside connection are the coming Walking Dead movies anchored by Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes, the first of which could arrive in 2020.

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