Is Morgan's Fear The Walking Dead boat trip connected to season 7's ongoing PADRE mystery? A nuclear detonation in Fear The Walking Dead season 6 has made the spinoff's zombie apocalypse even more challenging than usual, but a glimmer of hope surfaced in the form of PADRE. An elusive settlement safe from fallout and built for the future, the legend of PADRE became a recurring topic throughout season 7's first half, before dropping off the radar completely in block two. Regardless, the PADRE rainbow must lead somewhere, and the sudden disappearance of Lennie James' Morgan Jones might show the way.
Previously in Fear The Walking Dead season 7, John Dorie Sr. helped reunite Morgan with young Mo after villainous Victor Strand took the child hostage. The baby came with a message from Morgan's girlfriend, Grace, who implored him not to fight in the coming battle against Strand, and find somewhere safe with Mo instead. Heeding her advice, Morgan hopped into an inflatable raft stolen from the USS Pennsylvania submarine and drifted toward parts unknown, hoping to find somewhere zombies are the regular flesh-munching kind rather than radioactive time bombs.
The timing of Morgan's Fear The Walking Dead departure felt unavoidably weird. Sure, taking Mo elsewhere would be the smartest, safest thing to do in real life, but common sense is seldom seen in The Walking Dead's zombie apocalypse. Moreover, Morgan has spent Fear The Walking Dead season 7 steadily provoking a showdown against Victor Strand. Ducking out at the last moment is both an odd creative choice and uncharacteristic of the Morgan we know and love. Some viewers might've expected Lennie James would reappear last-minute, arriving like Gandalf to turn the tide of battle just when all looked lost. Even Strand himself ponders whether Morgan is scheming a "grand entrance," but all suspicions are proven false when Morgan remains sailing while the battle rages. Surely, there's a reason for such a major absence... and maybe that reason is PADRE.
When Morgan set off in Fear The Walking Dead season 7's appropriately-titled "The Raft," he lacked direction and destination, heading for the unknown on a vague prayer of finding somewhere habitable. Given how the search for PADRE has yielded little fruit on land, taking a more watery route makes sense. It's often said that the best way to find something is stop looking, and maybe Fear The Walking Dead leans into that old adage by having Morgan stumble across PADRE during his aquatic adventures with Mo. Logically, it also tracks that if PADRE has gone undiscovered thus far, it probably lies where few would dare even venture - i.e. across water.
That could explain why Fear The Walking Dead pulled the ringleader who suggested invading Strand's Tower in the first place from season 7's final battle. Precious few reasons are important enough to justify Morgan's omission from the action, but finding PADRE is absolutely one of them.
Fear The Walking Dead has spent the second half of season 7 repeatedly denying PADRE exists, declaring The Tower is PADRE, or claiming PADRE was inside us all along. Sooner or later, more concrete answers will be required. Separating Morgan from the main group to have him happen across PADRE by chance is the perfect way to introduce this enigmatic new locale, since it gives viewers an easy introduction before focus switches permanently to a new setting. Morgan finding PADRE looks even more likely after the final moments of "Divine Retribution," where Alicia accidentally sets fire to the building she promised nearby survivors would be safe barely even a minute prior. With the Pennsylvania leaking and the Tower burning, PADRE is the only place Fear The Walking Dead can go, and Morgan might've already started blazing a trail.
Fear The Walking Dead continues Sunday on AMC.