Fear the Walking Dead Twist Reveals Virginia’s Secret Weapon to Kill Morgan Jones

Pioneer leader Virginia (Colby Minifie) is putting together a posse to track down and take out the outlawed Morgan Jones (Lennie James), revealing her secret weapon targeting the hard-to-kill Morgan in the latest Fear the Walking Dead. Six weeks after she separated Morgan's group and shot him point-blank — leaving him to die inside zombie-filled Humbug's Gulch — Virginia hired bounty hunter Emile (Demetrius Grosse) to find Morgan dead or alive and finish the job. When Morgan abandoned his no-kill code and warned Virginia that she is "dealing with somebody else now," she issued an ominous warning of her own:

"I thought I needed you to be dead for this to work," Virginia said about her plans for the future. "But I don't. I just need them to think you are." If Morgan tries even the tiniest bit to convince them otherwise, she'll kill his friends one by one.

In "Welcome to the Club," Virginia reveals her secret weapon: get Morgan's friends to kill him.

Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) are prisoners of the fortified settlement of Lawton, Oklahoma, where Virginia forces them to clear a mass of walkers under threat of harm to Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) and Daniel (Rubén Blades). The dead stand in the way of a weapon that is key to building Virginia's future — and the survivors get to be a part of it.

According to Dakota (Zoe Colletti), Virginia's younger sister, "She wants whatever is in there. There's someone out there that she's trying to kill. She wants to use it against him."

The prisoners clear the warehouse but come up empty-handed. No weapon, no nothing, except what Virginia calls "the key to our survival."

"The thing I'm looking for ain't in here, it's you. A true leader," she tells Strand, the first person to succeed where many others failed. "And for what you did here today, each and every one of you, you are the key. This is how we survive." With that, Virginia says, "You just formed us an army. The start of one, at least."

When Strand points out that Virginia didn't say what this army is for, she tells him they'll find out. Eventually. For now, his job is to get this "fine young group of soldiers" to fall in line. Appointing him to the position of Pioneer Ranger with a key badge, Virginia tells him, "When the time comes for me to call y'all up for the big show, y'all best be ready."

But Morgan is quietly assembling an army of his own, which might soon grow its ranks with Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Althea (Maggie Grace).

"I think Virginia sees Morgan as the biggest threat to her community's safety, in a lot of ways," Minifie said when explaining Virginia's vendetta against Morgan on the Walking Dead Universe Preview Special. "For many reasons I don't know I can get completely into [yet]."

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things The Walking Dead Universe. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead premiere Sundays at 9 pm ET/8c on AMC.