Major spoilers below, so be sure to watch Fear the Walking Dead's finale before reading.
Throughout Fear the Walking Dead's fifth season, the protagonists have mostly maintained the single-minded goal of saving and/or helping anyone who needed it. Their efforts were successful at times, and Morgan and Alicia amassed a group of over 40 survivors before coming to a troublesome crossroads with Virginia and the Pioneers. Unfortunately for the group, and for fans of star Lennie James, Fear the Walking Dead's Season 5 finale seemingly killed off O.G. survivor Morgan Jones.
For a quick refresher, Morgan and some others believed that turning to Virginia for help at Humbug's Gulch would be the only way to keep everyone alive and safe, despite the semi-villain's track record. And in the end, after everyone was split up and taken to different Pioneer outposts, Virginia revealed her plan to kill Morgan right there in the tourist attraction. After getting one shot off that put Morgan down, Virginia's follow-up shot backfired, so she left Morgan as food for an incoming herd of walkers.
As it sometimes goes in this universe, though, viewers did not actually watch Morgan die, thus leaving the possibility open that he will somehow avoid death between now and the Season 6 premiere in 2020. His final radio message to everyone certainly implied that he wouldn't be around to offer any more soft-spoken guidance in the future, but why would Fear the Walking Dead's showrunners choose this narrative route to end Morgan's story? Let's discuss some things.
Virginia Hasn't Earned The Right To Kill Morgan
While I do indeed enjoy Colby Minifie as the doom-harboring antagonist Virginia, she's only been around for a few episodes, and definitely hasn't proven herself to be worthy of taking out such an important character within the Walking Dead franchise. As well, I don't really enjoy that Morgan consciously and purposefully called for his own Harbinger of Death in such a way. (Not that he fully grasped all of Virginia's motives at first, but still.)
Morgan has managed to survive some mighty freaky close calls in the post-apocalypse, to the point where it seemed like it would take a major force of nature to finally take him and his current hopeful streak out for good. Instead, the creative team introduced a backstory-lite villain to do the deed, with the help of a group of insatiable zombies. I don't quite buy it, although I'm not sure how things would get reversed from there. (More on that below.)
Morgan And Grace's Relationship Just Got Interesting
Everyone saw it coming a million miles away, but Morgan and Grace at last voiced their feelings for one another in the Season 5 finale. With Al's help, Morgan had only recently found some closure over losing his wife and son, allowing him to recognize and embrace his attraction and affection for Grace. She initially didn't want to address it all, but both Morgan and Grace each had their big confessional moments in the closer, giving fans hope for their future together.
Shockingly, it was revealed in the final minutes that Grace's health problems apparently weren't being caused by radiation poisoning at all. She's pregnant, and has been for months! (Not for Morgan, of course, but I'd guess for the previously referred to man that she'd gotten romantic with.) It had to have been a blow to Morgan's guts to hear that Grace isn't doomed, since that would give him even more of a reason to survive. No amount of candy beanies would help his situation.
Does This Mean Morgan And Rick Don't Reunite?
One of The Walking Dead's longest lasting relationship has been the kinship between Morgan and Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes, and the last time Lincoln shared the screen with Lennie Jones was for Fear the Walking Dead's Season 4 premiere, which was Morgan's introduction to the spinoff's world. Of course, most fans are aware that Rick got ousted from The Walking Dead in Season 9, just prior to the announcement that Lincoln would be headlining a trio of Rick-centric features that will assumedly close out that character's story.
Considering Danai Gurira will also be exiting The Walking Dead in Season 10 to assumedly later show up in the Rick flicks, it seemed entirely possible that Scott Gimple & Co. would figure out a way to get Rick and Morgan together again for at least one more conversation. But unless Isabelle from Indiana and her helicopter are about to drop Rick off at Humbug's Gulch, the chances of their reunion happening are looking pretty dismal, and Morgan doesn't even know about Jadis' possibly well-meaning Rick-napping, which can be either a positive or a negative.
Could Sherry Save Morgan?
The finale, titled "End of the Line," drifted off in the most dour manner possible, stripping away so much of the optimism that Morgan had built up over the course of the past two seasons. It left little room for anything but a deus ex machina to come in and extend Morgan's shelf life. Could that miracle savior come in the form of the long-missing love of Dwight's life, Sherry?
It would be a fitting way to push things forward on the Dwight and Sherry front. Morgan and John (and the rest) gave Dwight a new reason to live, even in the face of Sherry's request for him not to keep looking. And the finale started with Dwight thinking he heard Sherry on the radio, so it's certainly plausible that she's in the immediate area, and totally understandable that she wouldn't have wanted to show herself whenever Virginia and others were still around. Barring her reappearance – or perhaps a Breaking Bad crossover involving a machine gun in a car trunk – Morgan's survival is very unlikely.
Wait, Is Alicia Safe From Radiation Poisoning Now?
Since Morgan's death has been a longstanding possibility in The Walking Dead universe for a long time now, his situation was arguably less surprising than the reveal that Grace has been pregnant and malnourished all this time, and not knocking on death's door. I kind of expected the pregnancy, even in a show like this, but not the reversal of fortunes. So what does that reveal mean for Alicia, who has also been under the impression that her days were more numbered than usual?
If neither Grace nor Alicia is actually infected, then what was the point of all that? Alternately, does Grace's good news make it even more likely that Alicia will be the one who ends up dying from it?
Fear the Walking Dead was already renewed for Season 6 earlier this year, with the plan being that the story would get changed up completely by the end of Season 5. That certainly happened, with Morgan possibly dying and the rest of the protagonists being split up. Here's hoping some big reveals arrive earlier than usual, so that we're not stuck worrying about Morgan all through the fall and winter.
2019 Fall TV Premiere Schedule: Dates For New And Returning Shows
Though Fear the Walking Dead is now finished airing in 2019, AMC has more undead mayhem on the way with the premiere of The Walking Dead Season 10, which kicks off on Sunday, October 6, at 9:00 p.m. ET.
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