Rick Grimes Inspires Major Morgan Jones Moment on Fear the Walking Dead

Fear the Walking Dead recalls Morgan’s (Lennie James) final episode of The Walking Dead when he ends a war over Virginia (Colby Minifie) in “Things Left to Do.” Spoilers for Sunday’s Season 6 Episode 9. In the Season 8 finale of The Walking Dead, “Wrath,” Morgan witnesses Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) cease war with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his Saviors by ordering an end to the killing: Negan is defeated but kept alive and imprisoned. More than a year after Morgan leaves Rick’s Alexandria and crosses over to Fear, he reunites his new family of survivors who were separated and subjugated by Ginny earlier in Season 6.

In “Things Left to Do,” Morgan ousts Ginny from her position of power when she threatens to execute a lineup of his hostage friends, including Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) and a pregnant Grace (Karen David). Pioneer Ranger Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) uses the opportunity to turn his army against Ginny, who is injured in a shootout but escapes with Morgan’s help: he needs her alive to swap Daniel and Grace for Ginny’s daughter Dakota (Zoe Colletti).

When Strand’s posse and Sherry’s (Christine Evangelista) mob of masked Outcasts show up at the dam community where Morgan is building a future away from Ginny, they demand she be turned over — or they force their way inside the dam and take her. Ginny cuts a deal: if Morgan lets Dakota live behind his walls, she’ll hand herself over. Ginny will free Grace and Daniel, but Morgan has to be the one to execute her.

Wielding his axe with Ginny’s head on the chopping block, Morgan appeals to the blood-thirsty mob: “The future I’m trying to build, if we start like this, then we are no better than you! We are no better than her!”

Recalling words said to him by John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt), who was gunned down by Dakota an episode earlier in “The Door,” Morgan wants the killing to stop. “I figure we should start that by having her live. By making her live with what she’s done,” he says of the jailed Ginny. Morgan symbolically impales his axe into the dirt, where it will stay until the time comes they need it again.

Morgan then appeals to the armies before him: “Anybody who’s ready to abide by the rules and the foundations that we are laying down here, you are more than welcome to stay. I asked you to live before, to just live. I hope today’s the day when we can start doing that. And do it here.”

It’s a speech similar to one Rick made when he ordered his militia and Negan’s Saviors to stand down in “Wrath.” Despite the protests of Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan), who wanted Negan dead for murdering her husband Glenn (Steven Yeun), Rick slashed Negan’s throat then had him spared because “there’s gotta be something after.”

“We’re all gonna go home now. Negan’s alive. But his way of doing things is over,” Rick says in “Wrath.” “And anyone who can’t live with that will pay the price, I promise you that. And any person here who would live in peace and fairness… who would find common ground… this world is yours, by right. We are life. That’s death! And it’s coming for us. Unless we stand together! So go home. Then the work begins. The new world begins. All this is just what was… there’s gotta be something after.”

18 months into Negan’s life sentence in the Alexandria jail, Maggie plots to execute Negan but lets him live when she decides he’s worse than dead behind bars. Fear subverts this when John’s widow, June Dorie (Jenna Elfman), avenges her husband by shooting and killing Ginny inside the dam’s jail. Ginny lived because of Morgan’s mercy, but her end was June’s wrath.

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.