Fear the Walking Dead Recap: “Fighting Like You”

The penultimate episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “Fighting Like You,” begins where last week’s episode left off: with Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) on the warpath against Troy Otto (Daniel Sharman) to finish what she started 10 years ago at the Gonzalez Dam. Troy has tracked down his daughter Tracy (Antonella Rose) and thawed the frozen walker herd, including Tracy’s zombified mother. Troy is leading the herd to PADRE after his right-hand man Russell (Randy Bernales) figured out how to get the dead onto the island. And then, Troy tells Tracy, “We’ll finally have a home.”

They’re transporting Tracy’s mother to PADRE so she can “be the one to make Madison pay for everything she’s done.” Tracy asks why mom has to be the one to kill Madison, so Troy reminds her: “She’s Alicia’s mother. She put the thinking in her head that got peoplekilled. We can’t let what happened to mom happen to anyone else.” She also questions why Troy would want her to wear her necklace — the St. Christopher’s medallion that, according to Victor Strand (Colman Domingo), he once gave to Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) — if she killed mom. Troy explains that her mother gave him the necklace when she died and made him promise to give it to Tracy to keep her safe, which is what he’s been doing ever since.

Troy’s truck triggers a trip wire, causing a rigged tree log to pummel the truck and send it careening down an embankment. Tracy escapes the wreck unscathed, but dad does not: Troy is impaled by a jagged branch pinning him inside the overturned truck. The crash has drawn walkers out of the woods, so he tells Tracy to leave him and find Russell. “If you don’t make it to PADRE,” Troy tells Tracy, “then all of this, everything that I’ve done, it won’t mean anything.” Tracy doesn’t want to live at PADRE without Troy, so she gives him the medallion to keep him safe while she goes to get help. “And then we’ll do what we said — we’ll make PADRE our home. Together.”

Over Madison’s dead body. She’s taken the MRAP SWAT van back to the icy swamp, only to find Troy’s men melted the mud and freed the frozen walkers. Strand reaches Madison over walkie-talkie and pleads with her to call off her mission to kill Troy, but enough people have died because of her. She can’t put the rest of them at risk. He reports that he’s with the trio of women carrying on Alicia’s legacy — Ada (Nona Parker Johnson), Sara (Sasha An), and Della (Julia Wackenheim-Gimple) — after the rest of the group retreated to the island to escape the herd. She’s doing this so he doesn’t have to — so he can build PADRE into what Alicia would have wanted.

Strand warns Madison that he learned what she’s doing the hard way at the Tower: “It was just always one more thing I needed to do to keep it safe. And before I knew it, I was the thing people needed to be protected from.” Madison finds Tracy in the van trying to use its radio to get Troy help and learns that Russell is leading the herd toward PADRE. Only Troy knows where Russell is taking the herd, so if Madison is going to protect PADRE, she has to get to it first. She gets Tracy to give up Troy’s location and radios Strand: she’s leaving him the MRAP with Tracy inside, and she’s going to kill Troy. “What happened to ‘no one’s gone until they’re gone?’” Tracy asks Madison, telling her that if she really wanted to build PADRE into what Alicia wanted, she’d give Troy a second chance. Madison looks at the skeletal remains of Alicia’s severed arm — all that’s left of her daughter after Troy killed her —and tells Tracy point-blank: “He doesn’t deserve one.” Alicia believed everyone deserves a second chance, and if Madison believed that, she’d help her father. But Troy killed Alicia, so Troy has to die.

Back at the crash, Troy radios Russell and makes him promise to get Tracy to PADRE. Madison saves Troy from walkers clutching at the vehicle… only so she can kill him herself. Before Madison can bring her sledgehammer down on his head, Troy kicks Madison, rips himself free, and tackles Madison to the ground. He goes to feed her face-first to Tracy’s zombie mom, so Madison twists the shard of branch still embedded in Troy’s shoulder and then plunges a blade into his wife’s brain, putting her down. And she’s going to do the same to Troy. “You killed my daughter. I’ll do what I have to do to make sure her memory doesn’t die,” Madison says. Troy tells her that Alicia’s beliefs are what got her killed, but Madison says places like PADRE can still work “if people like you and me are no longer in this world.”

Madison wields her hammer like an executioner’s blade, but Troy tells her she won’t stop the herd if he’s dead. If Madison lets him bury his wife and see his daughter so he can tell her something face-to-face, he’ll take her to Russell. Madison and Troy are aware they can’t trust the other to hold up their end of the deal, but Madison makes it clear she’s going to kill him — for good this time — to protect PADRE.

At the van, Tracy watches an old video that Althea recorded of Alicia (in the season 5 episode “Channel 4”). “My mom used to look for a little bit of good every time she went out into the world,” Alicia says on the tape. “She would have liked this.” Strand arrives and informs her that Troy agreed to reveal the herd’s location if they bring him to his daughter, but Tracy fears Madison is going to kill her dad when she gets what she wants. But if Tracy keeps watching those tapes, Della says, she’ll see that Madison gave a lot of people second chances “whether they deserved them or not.” That includes Strand. Madison and Alicia never gave up on him, so they just need to remind Madison she’s a person who believes in second chances.

In the woods, Troy digs a grave for his wife, Serena Otto. Madison remarks that it must be nice getting to bury the person he loves, to which Troy responds that Alicia can keep rotting and roaming as a walker forever. (Troy might as well be digging his own grave.) Troy explains why he blames Alicia for Serena’s death, telling Madison that Serena was pregnant when they were looking for a place to live after Mexico. Serena got bit on the arm like Alicia… and it was Alicia who saved her. They put an SOS over the radio, Alicia responded, saved Serena’s life, and departed in the MRAP to go help more people. This inspired Serena to pay it forward and help people like Alicia. Unfortunately, Serena responded to an SOS call that led her into a trap: a man shot her, robbed her, and left Serena for dead. Troy found Serena holed up in a strip mall, where she eventually succumbed to blood loss. “I held her while she died, Madison,” Troy says. “I listened to her weep. She told me she’d never get to watch her daughter grow up.” All because she believed what Alicia believed. Troy promised he’d never let Tracy hurt the way her mother did — and he’d never let his daughter believe what Alicia put into Serena’s head. That’s the reason Troy killed Alicia.

A walker stumbles out of the woods, and when Madison turns to kill it, Troy hits her with his shovel and makes a run for it — right into another trap. Who has been leaving traps throughout the woods? It’s Crane (Daniel Rashid), a.k.a. PADRE’s Ben Krennick, who has been holed up on a barge since the death of his sister Shrike (Maya Eshet) in the midseason finale. He blames Madison for Shrike’s death and wants to take back PADRE. If Troy stops the herd from reaching PADRE, Crane will let him live there with Tracy. Crane turns on his walkie so Troy can call off his men… only for Madison to use the opportunity to alert Strand that she’s on the docks with Troy. Madison remarks that “Blue Jay”/June Dorie (Jenna Elfman) should havekilled Crane instead of sparing him, reinforcing her belief that not everyone deserves a second chance.

Crane cuffs Madison and Troy’s hands together and forces them to lead him to the herd at gunpoint. He points out that the last time he saw “Lark,” she risked her life to reunite Nightingale and Wren: Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and his daughter Mo (Zoey Merchant). “Now you’re using a father against his own daughter? Whatever happened to ‘family is worth fighting for?’” To that, Madison responds, “It still is. I’m just fighting like you guys.” Daniel (Rubèn Blades) and Luciana (Danay García) attack the transport, freeing Madison and dragging Troy along. They hide out in a shack three miles out from the barge to radio Strand for help, but the connection is weak. Troy says they need to get to higher ground to transmit their coordinates. “‘We?’” Daniel chuckles, turning his gun on Troy. “We’re not going anywhere.” Luciana and Daniel didn’t track them here to save them — they did it to kill Troy and avenge their people after the shootout at the truck stop. And they’re doing it for Ofelia. And for Charlie.

Madison convinces Luciana and Daniel to let Troy go. He’s their only shot at finding the herd and save PADRE from being overrun by 5,000 walkers, but they need the MRAP to get there in time. Daniel warns Madison that Troy will say whatever he has to say to get what he wants, but she already knows. “When this is all over,” she tells him, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.” And if she doesn’t, Daniel will.

Still handcuffed together so he can’t run off, Troy tells Madison that he wasn’t going to lead Crane to the herd because his deal was with Madison. Madison assures him she’ll kill him as quick as Crane will, but Troy thinks that’s not who she is. “I know what it is to believe in something,” he explains, “and how hard it is to let it go.” When they reach a swamp filled with water-logged walkers, their only way across is a rickety wooden bridge. Madison notes the swamp is pulling the walkers down like quicksand. But with Crane closing in and opening fire, their only option is to go tread carefully over the bridge. Rather than shoot them, Crane chops the bridge rope with his hatchet, sending Madison and Troy plunging into the zombie-infested swamp. Either the walkers will get them, or the mud will suck them below to drown.

Troy says he can still lead Crane to the herd, but the man formerly known as “Padre” is willing to let PADRE fall if it means watching Madison die for letting his sister be eaten alive. Troy tells Crane he’s just trying to get to his daughter, but that only reinforces what Crane believes and why PADRE separated parents from their offspring: “People need to be protected from themselves. Especially when it comes to their kids.”

As it turns out, that’s the reason Crane and Shrike saved Madison after she used a flare to lead a walker horde into the Dell Diamond baseball stadium, locked herself inside, and sacrificed herself to save her kids. In a quick flashback to the season 4 episode “No One’s Gone,” it’s revealed Madison escaped the stadium after it was overrun with walkers and engulfed in flames by taking cover in a water truck. She was then found and rescued by Crane and Shrike, who heard what were believed to be Madison’s last words to Nick and Alicia: No one’s gone until they’re gone. “If you were willing to die for them, we knew we could get you to do just about anything. You thought that those beliefs were gonna save your kids… but in the end, that’s what got them killed,” Crane says.

Madison then yells out to draw nearby walkers out of the woods, which descend on Crane and devour him. As Troy and Madison struggle to keep their heads above water, Troy tells her he’s sorry and that he didn’t want it to end like this. He then tells her that Russell is leading the herd to the northwest corner of the swamp, hoping the current will sweep the dead to the island’s shore. “Maybe I don’t deserve a second chance,” he says, “but Tracy does.” But it’s too late for second chances. Troy and Madison start to go under, her last words an admission that PADRE is “better off without people like us.”

But then… a second chance. Madison wakes up to find Strand and Alicia’s followers with Daniel and Luciana. But they’re not the ones who saved her: it was Troy, who reveals he grabbed a root and pulled them out of the swamp. He did it because he wasn’t telling Madison the truth. The truth? Serena never regretted following Alicia, and it was Alicia who gave Serena the St. Christopher medallion to bring them luck. He confesses that he lied to Tracy, too, and tells Madison that his wife made him promise to keep what Alicia believed in alive so he’d always know what he was fighting for. But he broke that promise.

Daniel and Luciana don’t believe him, but he reminds Madison that he told her he knows what it’s like to believe in something — and how hard it is to let it go. He saw it in Serena’s eyes as she was dying, and he saw it in Madison’s eyes as they were going under. It was the look of someone who was going to die “believing in nothing.” Troy couldn’t let that happen. Not for Madison’s sake —but for Tracy’s. “I didn’t do what Serena asked. I didn’t keep it alive,” Troy tells Madison. “But maybe I could. If you gave me a second chance. Like Alicia did.”

Madison realizes that’s what Troy wanted to tell Tracy. He’s reunited with his daughter, so it’s Troy’s turn to hold up his end of the deal and take them to the herd. Later, the MRAP cuts off the herd, opening fire and gunning down the front of the pack. Then Odessa (Jayla Walton), Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Sherry (Christine Evangelista), and June arrive with a convoy of PADRE prefects to divert and break up the herd. Madison has fluid in her already damaged lungs, so it’s imperative they get her to PADRE for treatment. 

But first, the group is split over what to do with Troy. Strand and Ada advocate for giving Troy a second chance, but Daniel and Luciana don’t trust letting him on the island. “What if he’s telling the truth? What if he’s changed?” Strand asks. If not, Daniel asks Madison: “Are you willing to risk that?” Meanwhile, Troy returns Tracy’s medallion and apologizes for lying to her. “You did what you said,” she tells her dad. “You found us a home. And you kept me safe.” Madison tells Tracy to get ready to head to PADRE, but first, she needs to talk to Troy.

Madison tells Troy she’s been thinking about Alicia, and how she gave him a second chance despite everything. Alicia’s arm is all Madison has left of her daughter. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure I’m worthy of the second chance that she gave me,” Troy promises. “And everyone on that island, too. Things have changed. You have to believe me.”

“That’s just it, Troy — I don’t.” Madison impales Troy with Alicia’s arm prosthetic, shocking everyone as she twists the blade deeper into his guts. “I’m done with second chances,” Madison snarls. “Troy was right. That’s what got Alicia killed. That’s why I had to do this! If I didn’t, I’d be putting you all at risk. This is how we survive. This is how PADRE survives.” Troy, blood spilling from his mouth, brings Madison close. “You have to fight for Tracy like you fought for Nick and Alicia.” Why would I do anything you say? Troy spits it out: “Because she’s not my daughter.” Troy reveals that Serena died before their child could be born. Who is Tracy’s mother? Who??

“Alicia. I took her child to make up for what I lost,” Troy answers. With that, Troy Otto dies by Madison’s — and Alicia’s — hand.

“The Road Ahead,” part two of the two-episode Fear the Walking Dead series finale, follows.

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