What The Hell Happened To Morgan On Fear The Walking Dead?
Spoilers for this season of Fear the Walking Dead  The sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead has been good. It has been very good. Part of that has to do with much better writing, and more intimate, self-contained stories. Part of that also has to do with the new attitude of the series nominal lead, Morgan Jones. He nearly died at the end of last season and returned as a new Morgan Jones, a man who would kill when necessary and refuse to take anyones bullst. In this weeks episode, however, Morgan Jones took everyones bullst. The penultimate episode of the season, U.S.S. Pennsylvania, is also easily the worst episode of the season, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the old Morgan Jones resurfaced. I dont want to sound too harsh, but honestly, the old Morgan Jones is a pathetic guy. This weeks episode takes place largely inside of a nuclear submarine, which is a cool setting, especially given the fact that there are also 100+ zombies inside of an enclosed space. There is one mission: Navigate through the submarine to where Teddy, Riley, and Dakota are and prevent them from launching enough nuclear missiles to essentially destroy the continent. It has all the makings of a cool video game. The setting, however, does not leave a lot of room to maneuver, so early on in the episode, Morgan decides he needs to go it alone, even if that means sacrificing himself. Strand, however, decides for some inexplicable reason that he refuses to let Morgan play hero by himself. For reasons that arent entirely clear, Strand seems hellbent on impressing Alicia (currently locked away by Teddy in a fallout shelter), and he believes that stopping Teddy will put him back in Alicias good graces. Strand, therefore, forces himself onto Morgan, but Strand never stops being Strand. At one point, when he and Morgan are blocked by a small horde of zombies, Strand takes Morgans ax away and pushes Morgan into the horde, sacrificing his friend so that Strand can escape and be the hero. Its a move that Strand has pulled before, but never on someone as close to him as Morgan Jones. In any respect, Strand leaves Morgan behind and makes his way toward the command center, but before he enters, hes confronted by Dakota, who is holding a gun to his face. She gives a big long speech, and just as shes about to shoot Strand, Morgan arrives and knocks her out (Strand is grazed by the bullet, but otherwise unharmed). No, he does not. No, not really. Well deal with what you did later, is all that Morgan Jones can muster. We do not. The confrontation with Teddy and Riley does not go much better. Morgan manages to prevent them from launching all but one nuclear missile. After that missile launch, however, Teddy gives Morgan another big speech, and then Morgan just  lets him go. Get out of here, he says to Riley and Teddy, arguably the most dangerous villain in Fear history, a man hellbent on near-total annihilation of the human species. And then he tells Strand to leave, too. Thats it. Thats the entire episode. Morgan and Strand try to stop Teddy from launching a bunch of nuclear missiles, but Teddy gets one off, and Morgan lets everyone (who tried to kill him in the episode) go. For dramatic reasons, I may understand it  the showrunners may want to save those big deaths until the season finale and hopefully, at least, allow John Dorie, Sr. the satisfaction of killing Teddy. But from a character standpoint, Fear basically assassinates the New Morgan Jones and replaces him with the same old life is precious Morgan Jones whose inability to kill occasionally cost him the lives of his friends.