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"Alaska" is the third episode of the sixth season of AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. It is the seventy-second episode of the series overall. It premiered on October 25, 2020, the same night as "The Wrong End of a Telescope", the fourth episode of the first season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. It was written by Mallory Westfall and directed by Colman Domingo.[1]
Plot[]
Al and Dwight go rogue on a recon mission for Ginny to follow a lead thought lost, but Al must choose between what she has now and what she's chasing.
Synopsis[]
Morgan plays with his namesake in her new crib. Rachel notices the bags of food that Morgan has brought and thanks him for it. Upon further inspection, however, she gets suspicious, and asks where Morgan had gotten the supplies. Morgan reveals that he has a friend inside one of Virginia's settlements. As he prepares to head out, Rachel asks if he wants to hold her baby, but Morgan declines, as he claimed his arm has healed sufficiently. Rachel says that it will be nice when her daughter gets a playmate, which Morgan agrees with, before heading out. Rachel rushes after him, wondering where he is going. Morgan laments how people didn't change much before the outbreak, even when they wanted to. He claims, however, that he has been "sixteen different somebody's since it all ended". Morgan is determined to find Grace and the others and bring them back, but is scared that he won't be the man they know. Rachel acknowledges that Morgan might have changed, but is certain he'll still be the man his group knew. Morgan then goes to a workbench and combines his staff and Emile's axe to create a new weapon, with which he immediately starts practicing.
Elsewhere, Althea and Dwight break into a funeral home and clear out the walkers, all while filming. Al then recites the time and place of their encounter to the camera, while Dwight loots a wallet off a dead walker and tosses it to Al. She checks the driver's license, but throws it away, as she already has several from Arizona. A walker then approaches, which Dwight believes could be from Alaska, one of the most coveted states for their driver's license-collecting game. After killing it, he is disappointed to discover the man is from Montana. Al notices there are 15 sleeping bags, which is more then the number of walkers they killed. Dwight goes to check upstairs, while Al heads to the basement. She explores the processing room, before a voice sounds from a walkie. Al searches for a notepad to record the conversation. A female voice asks the other person if they copy. Al tells the voice that she copies, without pressing the push-to-talk button, revealing the female voice to be Isabelle. She fails to notice a figure creeping up on her until it is too late. As Al scrambles to find her weapon, she is grabbed by a remarkably well-preserved walker, who seems to have trouble opening its mouth. Dwight comes to Al's rescue before she can be bitten and kills the walker. Dwight asks if the walker just turned, but Al smells formaldehyde, and concludes that someone embalmed the walker. Dwight radios their dispatch to let them know the status of the funeral home, but the Pioneer on the other end prevents them from going home until they figure out what went wrong, so they can avoid the same fate. Al doesn't want to stay, and is disillusioned with their new profession all together. Dwight tries to look on the bright side, and says that at least they're not in one of the settlements. He then shows Al a crate of beer he found.
They crack open their beers in the backyard, and are both disgusted by how stale it is. Dwight asks if Al thinks about "beer lady", a nickname for Isabelle she voices her disapproval of. Dwight remembers how Sherry used to say bad beer goes down better with pretzels. The pair toast to their respective loved ones. The walkie then comes alive, but Dwight grabs it before Althea can. He interrogates all about the voices on the radio, before realizing it's "beer lady". After making sure Dwight's camera is off, Al confirms that it is, that she's been tracking the group's movements, and that she knows where Isabelle might be. Excited, Dwight asks why they're not heading there right now. Althea tries to make excuses, but Dwight insists that she could run off with Isabelle, but Althea points out Ginny would kill them if she did. To this, Dwight suggests Althea fake her own death by passing off a walker corpse as her own, this being his plan in case he ever found Sherry. Al doesn't think it fair to but that kind of burden on Dwight, but he reminds her she is talking to a guy who walked halfway across the country because his wife left him a note. Al points out Dwight hasn't found her, but he jokes that if he knew where his wife might be, and Althea didn't push him to go, he'd kick her ass. Al finally agrees to search for "Drop Site Baker", where Isabelle might be.
Come nighttime, they arrive to the base of an office building, where they find a discombobulated walker. Dwight kills it and checks its wallet, finally finding an Alaskan driver's license, much to his glee. Inside the lobby, they spot the phrase "The end is the beginning" spray-painted on the wall. Al muses how everyone is a philosopher when "the world goes to shit". Further inside, they dispatch three walkers and discover a caged rat at the base of the stairwell. Before they can make sense of it, a walker comes crashing on top of the cage. Dwight kills it, and the pair begin their ascent. A few floors up, they find the stairway cut off by a group of walkers pushing against a flimsy barricade. They squeeze past them just as the barricade gives way into a doorway. Inside, however, they are held at gunpoint by two survivors. One of them, Nora, demands to know what they're doing in the building, and if they're with the group on the roof. They deny this, so Nora tells them that the people landing on the roof won't save them, revealing that one of her friends that went to check fell of the side of the building after being shot by them. Nora then asks about the cameras, before ordering her colleague, Lee, to lock the pair in the office.
Inside the office, Dwight angrily confronts Al about Isabelle, questioning if she was the one that shot the man from Alaska, but she doesn't know. Nora then walks in, and asks if they just go around and record settlements that failed. Dwight explains that they're doing it to stop these things from happening where they live. Nora asks them to turn on the cameras, as they need their help. In the cubicles, they find Nora's group to be gravely ill. Dwight tries to give water to one of them, but is dragged away by Althea. She reveals that the survivors are suffering from bubonic plague, and believes that it's too late for the survivors. She leads him to the other stairwell, as Nora chases after them. Althea blocks the door with an axe, and once again tells Dwight that Ginny isn't going to help the survivors, before heading upstairs. Dwight doesn't want to continue, and dubs the fact that Althea still wants to seek out Isabelle crazy. Al retorts that calling what they've been doing "living" is crazy, citing their game of seeing where dead people come from as an example. Al goes on to confess that the last time she felt alive was with Isabelle, and thinks a chance to feel that way again is worth the risk. Dwight accepts this reasoning and follows her up.
A few floors up, they are chased off the stairwell once more by walkers. Dwight loots the recently deceased walker for its wallet and finds a Tennessee license, before jokingly admitting that Al was right, and they need to stop doing that. He asks how Al thought of the game in the first place, so she reveals that she used to play a similar game with her brother, only with license plates and no dead people. Dwight then asks what Althea is planning on saying to Isabelle. Al doesn't know, as she's only known her for two days. She asks Dwight what he's going to say to Sherry, but he claims to have come to peace with the fact he will never see her again. Al reminds him of the things Ginny said, but Dwight thinks these were lies. Al also points out Dwight heard her voice on the walkie, but he claims this was simply due to a combination of dehydration, exhaustion, and desperation. Upon discovering the north stairwell is full of walkers as well, Al searches for another way up. She finds a bit of patched-over drywall and knocks a hole in it, revealing a maintenance shaft inside. The two climb the water pipes and duck into a shaft, where they hear Isabelle signal that she will be arriving to the roof in 30 minutes. Unfortunately, they find the shaft infested with rats, that could possibly be infected. With no other choice, they crawl through and bust through a dry wall at the other end. They find themselves in a room separated by another makeshift barricade from walkers that have died from the plague. They retreat as the walkers start to break through. As they seal themselves in a bathroom, Al discovers a pustule on Dwight's neck, revealing that he's infected with the plague.
With the walkers claw at the door, Al feels guilty for getting Dwight sick, but he doesn't blame her. Still, she is determined to find him help, but he insists on getting her to the roof first. Al thinks this out of the question, but Dwight tells her that, after all the "crazy shit" he went through to find Sherry, this is the least he can do for her. As they continue to argue, they hear gunshots outside. Nora busts into the room. The pair thank her for saving them. Nora scoffs and orders Al to call Virginia. Althea says that Virginia won't help them, but Nora isn't convinced. Dwight backs up Al's claims, but offers to go find a pharmacy and search for antibiotics. Nora reminds Althea that she's been exposed as well, but the latter brushes it off. They walk back to the barricade, behind which, Nora claims, is the exit to the roof. She also reveals that she worked in the building before the apocalypse and lived on the floor with the other survivors, but left with the others after people started dying. They only made it to the fifth floor, however, before more got sick. They successfully kill the walkers behind the barricade. Al and Dwight rush ahead, but stop when they see Nora mournfully observing a walker. She asks them not to record the walkers, as no one should remember her co-workers like this. She laments how it's hard to remember what they even looked like before. Al consoles Nora by giving her the driver's license of her friend who fell from the roof, for which she thanks her. Further ahead, Nora tells them the roof access is two flights up. Al supposes Nora thinks she's an asshole, but the latter denies this, explaining that she used to sell time shares to desperate people, despite not being brave enough to go to any of the exotic locales herself. She says that Althea much braver than she is, or just really stupid. Before Al departs, Dwight reveals that he doesn't think he'd say anything to Sherry if he ever saw her again, but would just hold her. Al tries to give him back her camera, but Dwight tells her to keep it, as he recorded something for her on it. The two hug each other goodbye.
Al finally makes it to the roof, two minutes before Isabelle's scheduled arrival. She sits down to watch Dwight's recording. Dwight asks her to crack a beer open with Isabelle for him, and to not forget the pretzels. Once the video finishes, Al hears a helicopter in the distance. After some deliberation, she picks up a flare and fires it into the air. She radios Isabelle and tells her to reverse course. Isabelle asks who's on the channel, but Althea just says that it's someone who wants to help her out. She explains to Isabelle that the building is infested with plague-infected walkers. Isabelle asks if Althea is infected, and the latter admits that she might be. Isabelle thanks her for the warning, but cautions her to stay off the channel. Isabelle also tells her that there is some beer in the supply crates, and hopes it isn't her last. Before she flies away, Al tells Isabelle it's good to hear her voice, because there aren't many people left. Isabelle simply acknowledges this, then flies away to another drop site. Al searches the supply crate for the beer, but also finds a crate of antibiotics inside. Overjoyed, she radios Dwight and tells him she's coming down.
After distributing the antibiotics to the sick survivors, Dwight asks Al what happened on the roof. Althea says that she lost a brother once, and that tapes are all she has left of him. She supposes she didn't want this to happen again. Dwight hugs her in response. Nora asks about what it's like where they're from. Al claims that they don't want to go there, but promises to find them a better place. The survivors soon pack up and head downstairs. At the bottom floor, Althea observes the rat cage once again and deduces that whoever spray-painted the wall caused the plague. Dwight thinks they should check in with the rangers, and Al agrees. A woman suddenly radios them and asks if they're in trouble, since she saw the signal flare. Recognizing the voice, Dwight snatches the walkie and asks: "Honey, is that you?" After some hesitation, the voice replies: "Dwight?" Dwight dashes outside and looks around frantically. In an alley, he spots a woman and sprints towards her. The woman is revealed to be none other than Sherry. Crying tears of joy, the reunited couple embrace and kiss.
Other Cast[]
Co-Stars[]
- Sydney Lemmon as Isabelle
- Todd Terry as Lee
Uncredited[]
- Unknown as Morgan
- Unknown as Ground Command (Voice Only)
- Unknown as Randall Perez
- Unknown as Sullivan Daniels
- Unknown as Mark Smith
- Unknown as Michael Jenkins
- Tammie Baird as Funeral Home Walker
- Ken Edwards as Office Survivor
- Pamela Weaver as Office Survivor
- Raquel Lanise as Office Survivor
Deaths[]
- Randall Perez (Zombified)
- Sullivan Daniels (Zombified)
- Mark Smith (Zombified)
- Michael Jenkins (Zombified)
- 13 unnamed funeral home survivors (Zombified)
- 15 unnamed office workers (Zombified)
Trivia[]
- First appearance of Nora.
- First appearance of Lee.
- First appearance (in Fear continuity) of Sherry. (Physically)
- Only appearance of Randall Perez. (Zombified)
- Only appearance of Sullivan Daniels. (Zombified)
- Only appearance of Mark Smith. (Zombified)
- Only appearance of Michael Jenkins. (Zombified)
- The title of the episode, "Alaska", refers to the game Al and Dwight play that involves finding driver's licenses on walkers from all of the U.S. States, with Alaska being one of the most difficult due to its remoteness. They finally find one on Mark Smith, but decide to give it to Nora so she could remember her friend the way he used to be.
- The fourth episode of Season 1 of The Walking Dead: World Beyond is played directly after this episode.
- Starting with this episode, Christine Evangelista (Sherry) has been added to the opening credits.
- Despite this, her name was listed in the end credits of this episode instead of the beginning, likely in order to keep the appearance of her character a surprise.
- Sydney Lemmon (Isabelle) is downgraded from "Also Starring" to "Co-Star" in this episode.
- This is likely due to the fact that only her voice is heard.
- It's suggested that the group who were at the submarine featured in "The End Is the Beginning" was responsible for spreading the bubonic plague that made Nora's group of survivors sick.
- This is confirmed in "The Holding". It's also revealed that they destroyed the funeral home that Al and Dwight explore in this episode.
- Every person whose driver's license Al and Dwight collect was born on September 24, with the exception of Sullivan, who was born on March 24.
Episode Highlights[]
- Morgan has once again cut his hair and shaved.
- Morgan turns his old staff into the handle for his new axe, effectively combining his two weapons.
- Al has a chance to go off with Isabelle but changes her mind at the last minute.
- Dwight and Sherry are finally reunited.