"Breathe With Me" is the fourth episode of the seventh season of AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. It is the eighty-ninth episode of the series overall. It premiered on November 7, 2021, the same night as "Who Are You?", the sixth episode of the second season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. It was written by David Johnson & Nazrin Choudhury and directed by Tara Nicole Weyr.
Plot[]
Against the advice of the group, Sarah searches for Wendell, and in the process encounters a dangerous survivor who forces her to take part in a search of his own.
Synopsis[]
A walker trips on one of Teddy's warheads in the middle of the nuclear wasteland.
Sarah wakes up in a strange bed and wanders into a living room. A walker attacks her. Al shoots the walker dead and alerts everyone that Sarah is awake. They're joined by Daniel, Wes, Charlie, and Luci.
Luci tells Sarah that she was unconscious for two days. Sarah asks who the pilot was in the chopper that rescued them. Al says it's better if she doesn't know. They inform Sarah that they haven't found Wendell. Sarah vows to find him, despite everyone's insistence that she'll die from radiation if she wanders far.
Sarah looks for Wendell daily and broadcasts messages to him over a walkie. Morgan responds one day and tells her that he and Grace are holed up in the submarine. Sarah warns Morgan to stay away from her area, since one of the warheads is leaking radiation. They lose contact.
Sarah tries to fix the walkie and sees a vehicle parked in the distance.
Sarah sneaks up to the car and finds Morgan's dog Rufus inside. She opens a box and discovers the head of Emile, Morgan's assassin. The assassin's brother, Josiah, holds her at gunpoint and offers to find Wendell if she helps him find Morgan. He tells her to arrange a meeting with Morgan at dawn. She radios Morgan.
Sarah takes Josiah to the one location where she hasn't searched for Wendell. Josiah kills some walkers and guts them to look for Wendell's remains. He warns Sarah that Wendell might have travelled out of range if he is a walker, but Sarah says Wendell was wheelchair-bound. Sarah gives him Wendell's baseball cap. Josiah lets Rufus smell the cap, then tells him to go find Wendell.
Josiah buries the dead walkers. He explains that he made a promise to Emile and won't bury his head until he keeps his promise. Rufus barks in the distance.
Josiah and Sarah find Rufus barking at a man in a gas mask who's leading a wagon full of walkers. The man explains that he's spreading the walkers around. Josiah orders the man to remove his many layers of clothing. Rufus sniffs the pile of clothes and finds a bandana belonging to Wendell. Josiah orders the man to show them where he found it.
The man takes them to a farm stable filled with walkers. Sarah spots Wendell's mangled wheelchair. The man says Wendell wasn't useful to him and is probably crawling on the ground somewhere. Sarah attacks the man. He releases walkers from their pens and escapes while Sarah and Josiah fight the walkers. Sarah races to the car. Morgan radios her to say that he's on his way to the rendezvous point. She tries to leave without Josiah, but Josiah jumps into the car with her. She crashes.
Sarah regains consciousness and sees the leaking warhead near the car. Josiah vows to get them both out of the wreckage and says he used to be a search and rescue park ranger. He recalls how Emile and Rufus once rescued him after he got lost in a forest fire. Sarah radios Morgan for help, but gets no answer. They free themselves from the wreckage and start killing walkers. Morgan shows up and faces off with Josiah.
Morgan and Josiah fight. Josiah takes Emile's head out of the box to kill Morgan, but Emile bites Rufus. Sarah slices Emile's head in two with Josiah's shovel, putting Emile down. Josiah sobs while holding Rufus.
Josiah comforts Rufus by a campfire and says he thought that he'd been doing right by Emile. Sarah empathizes with his fraternal connection. She explains that she couldn't breathe on her own when she was born, but she would breathe whenever she was next to another baby born that day – and that baby was Wendell.
Josiah buries Rufus and he makes amends with Morgan. Morgan guesses that Wendell is at Strand's Tower and suggests they head over. Josiah asks to help them find Wendell.
Morgan, Sarah, and Josiah arrive at a platform on the outskirts of Strand's Tower, which is still surrounded by walkers. They're ambushed by Strand and Howard. Strand confirms that Wendell is living at the Tower, but refuses to allow Sarah, Morgan, or Josiah into his community. He offers to let Wendell come out to see Sarah, but warns that he would not allow Wendell to return. Worried that Wendell would leave the Tower if he knew she had been there, Sarah begs Strand not to tell Wendell that she came for him. Strand agrees, then leaves. Morgan invites Josiah to stay with him and Grace, but Josiah declines the offer. Before he leaves, Sarah gives him some pills to counteract radiation exposure. Morgan invites Sarah to join him. They head back to the sub.
The man with the gas mask meets with others in his group. He says he found something he needs to show to Arno: the leaking warhead. He says it's the thing that will get them what they want.
Other Cast[]
Co-Stars[]
Uncredited[]
- Wyatt as Rufus
- Prop as Emile LaRoux (Zombified)
Deaths[]
- Emile LaRoux (Zombified)
- Rufus
Trivia[]
- First appearance of Sage.
- Last appearance of Emile LaRoux. (Zombified)
- Last appearance of Rufus.
- The title of the episode, "Breathe With Me", refers to the phrase Josiah used to calm Sarah down during her panic attack. This was after Sarah explained how she learned to breathe properly as an infant by watching Wendell.
- This episode was made available for streaming to subscribers of AMC Premiere on October 31, 2021.
- The sixth episode of Season 2 of The Walking Dead: World Beyond is played directly after this episode.
- Starting with this episode, Maggie Grace (Althea Szewczyk-Przygocki) is downgraded from "Starring" to "Also Starring".
- This is the first time in the Television Universe in which a main character is downgraded to a supporting character.
- The medicine used by the group at the fort is a real life medicine called Prussian Blue, used for anti-radiation applications.
- 78 days have passed since the events of "The Beginning", with the episode starting 2 days after Isabelle's rescue of Morgan's group and then experiencing a series of time skips up to the present.
- Sarah states that Wendell has been in a wheelchair for nearly 40 years.
- Josiah feeds Rufus beans with tabasco sauce on them. In "The End Is the Beginning", Emile tells Walter that his brother puts the secret ingredient of tabasco on his beans just before killing him.
Episode Highlights[]
- Although Will stated in "The Beacon" that only people who had died of the radiation are dangerous as zombies, it's shown that walkers that have been directly exposed to massive radiation such as the one that stumbled across the dud warhead and made its way to Fort San Vicente can also become dangerously radioactive.
- Daniel is shown to still be suffering from his neurological problems.
- It's revealed that Isabelle's helicopter had crashed following the events of "The Beginning", but everyone survived.
- After a failed attempt to kill Morgan, Sarah finally putting down Emile and Rufus' death, Josiah makes peace with Morgan and ends his efforts to kill him.
- Wendell is revealed to be in Strand's Tower. After Strand refuses Sarah access, she asks him to keep her visit a secret.
- Sage retrieves the dud warhead and he delivers it to the Stalkers, whose leader is revealed to be named Arno.