Is Anybody Out There?

Is Anybody Out There?
Season 5, Episode 8
Air Date	July 21, 2019
Written By	Michael Alaimo
Directed By	Michael Satrazemis
U.S. Viewers	1.60 million
Episode Guide
← previous	"Still Standing"
next →	"Channel 4"
Cast Guide
Starring Lennie James as Morgan Jones Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia Clark Maggie Grace as Althea Szewczyk-Przygocki Colman Domingo as Victor Strand Danay García as Luciana Galvez Garret Dillahunt as John Dorie Austin Amelio as Dwight Alexa Nisenson as Charlie Karen David as Grace Jenna Elfman as June Rubén Blades as Daniel Salazar
Also Starring Matt Frewer as Logan Daryl Mitchell as Wendell Mo Collins as Sarah Rabinowitz Cooper Dodson as Dylan Bailey Gavulic as Annie* Ethan Suess as Max* * no lines

"Is Anybody Out There?" is the eighth episode and mid-season finale of the fifth season of AMC's Fear The Walking Dead. It is the sixty-first episode of the series overall. It premiered on July 21, 2019. It was written by Michael Alaimo and directed by Michael Satrazemis.

Plot

Up against the clock, Morgan, Grace, and Alicia work to buy time as Dorie and Dwight race against the elements. Meanwhile, Sarah and Wendell get help from an unexpected source.

Synopsis

In a flashback, Morgan's group is at the dam taking turns on the radio trying to reach out to strangers who might need help. After days of no response, Morgan finally makes contact with a man named Logan, who he promises to help. In the present, Doris and Logan's Crew confront Logan, having torn apart the factory in search of something that he promised them but they can't find. The group demands to know what they are looking for, threatening to kill him otherwise.

On the road, Alicia takes a hot shower off of Grace's truck and furiously tries to rinse off the contaminated blood. As the nuclear plant sirens continue to ring, Grace tells Alicia they have to leave soon. A herd of walkers approaches and Morgan radios Luciana to tell her they'll try to lead them away as they prepare the plane and runway. Elsewhere, John hot-wires a car and drives him and Dwight away.

Back on the truck, Alicia tells Morgan she's sorry she couldn't kill any more of them, but he tells her she shouldn't be sorry and promises to teach her aikido. Grace then stops the truck as the walkers pass by and head towards the siren. Suddenly, the siren stops, and the nuclear plant explodes. The walkers then turn to their truck as Grace tries to drive away. She hits a car on the barricade and gets stuck, forcing them to run away.

Meanwhile, Sarah comes across Logan leaving the dam and asks him if he can help her light the runway for her friends. He reminds her he has stayed alive by not sticking his neck out, so he declines and drives off. Elsewhere, John and Dwight's car stalls out which Dwight suggests is due to the gas going bad. June radios John and vows to come to get him but he tells her not to and makes her promise to get on the plane whether he makes it back or not. He confesses his love for her and tells her she's his reason to live and he wants her to have a reason to live, too. John spots a message written on a tree - 'if you're reading this, it means you're still here', below the message, a ladder extending upwards from the flames. John then asks him how far he thinks Sherry's car is.

At the plane's airfield, Morgan, Alicia, and Grace run with the walkers close behind. Morgan radios Luciana to tell everyone to get ready to fly but she says John and Dwight aren't here yet, so Morgan asks them to help him fight the walkers. On the other airstrip, Sarah and Wendell discuss how they will light the runway for the plane's arrival when Daniel arrives to help them with some tools from his warehouse.

Back at the airfield, the group walks backwards to the plane as the walkers close in. Strand tells Alicia that Madison would be proud of her as June tells Morgan she made John a promise and they have to get on the plane. The group makes a run for the plane as John and Dwight drive their way past the walkers in Sherry's van. Everyone makes it on the plane safely as a wall of smoke from the reactor fills the runway. Strand and Al steer through it and make it into the open air. June tells John she didn't want to leave and he comforts her.

In the air, Grace breaks Morgan's staff in half and throws the contaminated half out of the plane. Morgan thanks her but doesn't look pleased. John tells June he worried he would never talk to her again and doesn't want to waste another moment. He fashions a candy wrapper into a ring, gets down on one knee, and proposes. She gleefully says yes and the two kiss.

That night, Sarah, Wendell, and Daniel finish the lights on the tarmac as the plane gets closer. Strand sees the lights and tells the other to look. Suddenly, Wendell spots a walker and kills it with his wheelchair spikes. Then another walker approaches and trips the runway lights. On cue, the plane runs out of fuel and Wendell's forced to jump out of his chair to fix it. The plane roars toward the dark runway as Wendell fixes the lights at the last second, allowing the plane to finally land.

Morgan embraces Sarah and introduces her to Grace. He then meets Daniel as everyone else gets introduced. Alicia spots Daniel and runs up to hug him. He apologizes to her for what happened and she promises to make things better. She introduces him to Dwight, who Daniel says needs a haircut. Charlie hugs him as Strand approaches. Daniel tells Strand he was wrong. "We all are sometimes," Strand says.

Suddenly, a woman contacts Morgan on the radio, asking if that was his plane flying overhead. She's seen his boxes and wants his help. The communication cuts out as Logan interrupts the signal and says they need to chat. He pulls up in an old truck as everyone focuses their guns on him. Logan explains that the world is in a state of decay that is making it hard for people to get to the places they need to. As part of that, gasoline is going bad which Clayton had anticipated and created a place to solve that problem. The location is in Clayton's journal which Logan had expected to find at the factory. Logan warns that if his crew knew he went to them, the would kill them all. Logan suggests that if they give him the journal, he can help the group find the place and with a glance at Sarah, admits that he has some things he needs to make up for as well. Logan insists that they need to work together to find the place before his former crew does.

Other Cast

Co-Stars

• Mikala Gibson as Doris

Uncredited

• Raja Afghani as Skidmark

Deaths

• None

Trivia

• First appearance of Doris.
• The opening credits feature the power plant in the background with the alarm siren going off.
• This episode marks Rubén Blades' 25th appearance on Fear The Walking Dead.
• The title of this episode is the same thing said by the radio woman in the episode "The Storm" of the main show. It's also said by the main characters over the radio at the beginning of the show as they try to find any other survivors, particularly by Morgan.
• Logan reveals that gasoline is going bad which Dwight notes started happening before he came to the area. Logan also mentions the damage caused by the hurricane in the second half of Season 4. According to Logan, Clayton had a place set up to help with the fuel problem, a place mentioned in his journals.
  • Gasoline going bad may be a reference to how in Season 9 of The Walking Dead everyone is using car shells pulled by horses instead of vehicles.
• While chased by the herd, Morgan retrieves his staff. Grace later breaks it in half and tosses the radioactive half out of the plane. According to Grace, the other half is safe for Morgan to use and he hangs onto it.
  • Morgan suggests that it's not the first time someone has broken his staff or at least tried to.
  • On Talking Dead, the discarded half of Morgan's staff is credited as Short End of the Stick.
  • The staff is later repaired with a new second half by Terrence off-screen in "Today and Tomorrow" which is also seen in video footage in "Channel 5".
• Alicia and Daniel are reunited for the first time since "Sleigh Ride".
  • This also marks the first meeting between him and Luciana.
• Alicia is decontaminated by Grace, but it is unknown how much radiation she absorbed or the effect it will have on her. Grace states that she might end up being okay, but Alicia is not so sure.
• Josh McDermitt shadowed director Michael Satrazemis during this episode.
• This episode is the first to have a Talking Dead episode since "Here to Help".

Goofs/Errors

• Many of the original children in Annie's group have seemingly vanished, not appearing on the plane after everybody boarded.
  • This is likely due to the showrunners rotating child extras for the group, as new child extras were seen in this episode, none of which appeared in any of the earlier episodes featuring Annie's group.
• In her conversation with Logan, Sarah identifies the truck she is driving as the one she stole from Clayton who she claims to have never met in person. However, the truck she stole was destroyed by Martha in "Blackjack" and "MM 54".
  • It's possible that she lied to Logan about this fact so she can garner some sympathy from his so he would help her out in lighting the runway so that the plane can land.
• When fighting the walkers, Wendell uses the same contraption on his wheelchair from "Blackjack" that he used on Purvis. However, his original wheelchair was destroyed with Clayton's truck in "MM 54".
  • It is possible in the interim between the fourth and fifth seasons, he rebuilt the mechanism anew for his new wheelchair.