Fear the Walking Dead Final Season Premiere Recap: “Remember What They Took From You”

Fear the Walking Dead‘s eighth and final season premiere, “Remember What They Took From You,” begins where the seventh season ended: with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) setting sail for PADRE to rescue Morgan’s kidnapped daughter, baby Mo. In the interrogation room where Madison agreed to collect children for PADRE so the island community would reunite her with Nick and Alicia, a distorted voice speaks to Morgan from behind one-way glass. “We know you are. Were,” the voice tells Morgan. “We know who you were.” It’s PADRE — as it turns out, PADRE is a place and a person.  

We learn PADRE intercepted the rafts of survivors that Alicia sent to the island and is processing the passengers. PADRE and Shrike (Maya Eshet) recruit Morgan to become a Collector like Madison and bring children to the island so that PADRE can “build something better” for the future. PADRE explains it’s necessary to separate children from their parents because the parents didn’t want to build something better, they wanted to rebuild what they had before the outbreak. Morgan and Madison manage to break out, but Madison stays behind to give Morgan time to rescue Mo and get off the island. She promised Morgan that his daughter won’t grow up on PADRE.

On the island, PADRE indoctrinates the children they train to fight walkers (called “carrion”). During a training session inside a cage, a staff-wielding young girl codenamed Wren (Zoey Merchant) freezes up and flashes back to memories of a swamp filled with biting and clawing walkers. Later, while doing chores, Wren transports oxygen canisters to an airlock cell containing a single prisoner: Madison, codename “Lark.”

Madison wants to die but is being kept alive by Shrike, who makes weekly withdrawals of her blood. A teenage prefect named Dove (Jayla Walton) warns Wren to stay away from Lark, who once helped a new recruit get his kid off the island before taking out a dozen guards with a sledgehammer, twice as many carrion, and nearly killing PADRE. But Wren, who longs for the mainland but lacks the survival skills to make it there alive, sneaks down to Madison’s cell so she can teach her how to kill carrion. 

When Madison overpowers Wren, she notices a scar on her wrist. One that the girl has had since she was little. Madison realizes that Wren is Mo, and seven years have passed since she brought the baby girl to the island and helped her escape with Morgan. 

Madison and Wren commandeer a motorboat and make it to the mainland, but Wren tries to break free from her kidnapper-turned-rescuer and return to PADRE. As Madison and Wren head into the marsh, they’re tracked down by Morgan at the spot where he landed with Mo seven years earlier. 

“I don’t know what PADRE told you about parents,” Morgan tells Wren, “but I promise you, it’s okay. Because I’m here to take you back to them.” Morgan, codenamed Nightingale, has spent seven years as a Collector because he accepted what Madison told him when they met on that Louisiana beach: that his daughter is better off with PADRE. But Morgan has rules, only taking children who have lost their parents, or kids whose parents give them up willingly for a better life.

On their trek to rendezvous with PADRE, Morgan clashes with Madison: he thinks Wren is safer at PADRE, and she spent seven years in a cell so Morgan could be with Mo. PADRE’s people radio “Nightingale,” telling him to bring in the fledgling but eliminate “Lark” as she’s a liability to the settlement. Morgan hesitates to kill Madison, but if he doesn’t, Wren might not get to return to PADRE. Madison disarms Morgan and tells him she’s once again saving him and his daughter.

With walkers closing in, their only escape route is through the swamp. It’s the same way Morgan went with baby Mo seven years ago, taking refuge on a houseboat in a walker-infested swamp. Wren finds a diaper bag and a walkman, playing Grace’s (Karen David) rendition of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” Wren remembers. She flashes back to that night seven years ago. Fleeting memories of walkers almost pulling them under.

Morgan reveals he called PADRE that night to rescue Mo. The walkers were pulling them under, and there were too many to kill. Wren remembers that night. She remembers the walkers closing in. She remembers Morgan apologizing. “I thought this was what you needed. I’m doing this for you.” She remembers him giving her up to PADRE to save her. She remembers her father stuck in the swamp, staying back to fight off walkers.

But this time, there’s no walkie talkie to call PADRE. Madison’s oxygen tank is damaged, and she’s too weak to stand, let alone fight. As the walker-logged houseboat starts to go under, Madison stays behind to draw off the dead as Morgan and Wren make a run through the swamp. With swamp walkers descending on Madison, Morgan and Wren are bogged down in the mud. PADRE’s not coming to save them this time.

Madison is about to be torn apart by teeth when bullets tear apart the walkers. It’s Grace, codename Heron, piloting a rescue boat after hearing PADRE’s radio chatter. After revealing that she’s Mo’s mother, Grace says she’s been maintaining radio towers for PADRE. Wren recognizes her voice from the tape — she remembered it even before the boat. That longing that Wren felt for the mainland wasn’t to fight carrion. It was for her parents.

Mo realizes that Morgan saved her when he called PADRE seven years ago and that he almost died fighting to get her back to them. She now knows that PADRE lied about her parents being selfish, that they couldn’t make the hard calls to protect her. “But you did before,” she says. “And you did just now.” Mo wants Madison to help the other kids she “rescued” for PADRE. Together. Morgan and Grace tell Mo — Wren — that PADRE can protect her in ways that they can’t, and they’re not her parents. Her parents were Isaac and Rachel, and they died a long time ago. “They made me promise to take care of you. And that is what I’m doing,” Morgan tells Mo. “And that’s why you’re going back to PADRE.” 

Shrike and her guards arrive at the shore to return Wren and Lark to PADRE. They still have use for Madison after all. “Remember what I showed you,” Madison tells Mo. “Remember what they took from you!” As Morgan and Grace lament losing their daughter again, Shrike informs Morgan that he’s being retired as a Collector. PADRE has invested too much in Wren to risk her crossing paths with her father again, and the episode ends with Morgan and Madison where they started: as prisoners. 

Back on the island, PADRE tells Wren that she’s about to play a “crucial role” in the settlement’s next steps. She tells PADRE she wants to be part of the future he’s building and that she’s not too young to protect it. “I’m not going to have to worry about you ever again, am I, Wren?” PADRE asks. “No, sir,” she replies. “Nothing to worry about at all.” 

Inside the training cage, Wren wields a sledge hammer and swiftly kills carrion with a single blow. Mo smirks. Fearless.

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead premiere Thursdays on AMC+ and Sundays on AMC. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow @CameronBonomolo and @NewsOfTheDead on Twitter for more TWD Universe coverage.