Fear the Walking Dead Episode 4.04 Recap and 4.05 Promo

AMC‘s Fear the Walking Dead Episode 4.04, titled “Buried,” explored the day that everything changed when a number of key characters reveal decisions that were made in the past that ultimately lead to the loss of Nick in last week’s episode. As the mystery begins to unfold, a shocking reveal and another death puts one of our characters on a new path. Check out the promo — and a sneak peek — for Fear the Walking Dead Episode 4.05, titled “Laura,” in the player below, as well as some behind-the-scenes looks at Episode 4.04!

In last night’s episode, Alicia, Strand, and Luciana decide to share part of their story with Al as she documents them each describing decisions they made on one particular fateful day that they think ended up costing Nick his life. As John and Morgan sit in the front of the SWAT van, Al records the three grieving people who have just lost a friend, a lover, and a brother — his corpse lying between them and Al — and we learn that on that particular day in the past the group decided to fight for their way of life at the stadium. But that choice didn’t come easy.

In the past, the group is desperately seeking locations to scavenge that the Vultures, who are still camping outside of the stadium, may not have already picked clean. Splitting up, Strand pairs up with Cole, Nick with Luciana, and Alicia with newcomer Naomi. In the present, Strand tells Al that going on those runs that day was their first mistake. Strand, who has so far tried to keep an emotional distance from Cole, reveals his concern and care for him when they come under attack from some walkers while rummaging through a greenhouse. He tells Cole later that he does have feelings for him, but Cole has no idea who the real Strand is. To prove his point, Strand takes Cole to an abandoned parking lot where he has been stockpiling food and supplies in a car. He tells Cole it’s enough for the two of them and they can leave, essentially abandoning and betraying Madison and the others at the stadium. Cole gets a look at the man Strand is capable of being, and he refuses, just as Strand assumed he would, and drives back to the stadium by himself.

In the present, while the four talk in the back, John shares a bit more of his own backstory with Morgan. He tells him that he used to be a cop and he tells a story about an alcoholic he once knew. That alcoholic managed to stay sober for a week after a near-death experience but quickly fell back into the bottle. John then confronts Morgan on whether the man will leave them again. John wants Morgan to meet Laura, the woman he met in the new world and who he is seeking now, and wants her to meet Morgan, too. Morgan explains that he intends to stick around long enough to see Nick buried, but after he’ll go on his way, alone.

Catching up with Luciana’s confessional, we learn that she and Nick explored a library. Nick starts gathering books, saying they need to build their own library so that people will have something to stick around for. Luciana realizes that Nick is actually doing it for Charlie, but as we know, since Charlie is the one who ends up shooting Nick dead, they never managed to bring the girl over to their side. A parallel begins to form as we learn that Nick and Luciana, just like Strand, considered leaving the stadium as well. Luciana finds a book of maps and tells Nick they should flip to a random page and wherever it lands, that’s where they’ll go. Luciana tells Al in the present that she “never should’ve opened that book.” As they land on a page, Nick starts to form a plan, telling Luciana that they’re looking at this all wrong.

Meanwhile, Alicia and Naomi head to a water park that is littered with bodies of walkers. At the top of a water slide, the two notice that someone had made a fort and they go up to search for any supplies. Naomi reminisces that she once went to a similar water park in the old world with her family and remembers eating churros. After carefully maneuvering up a very slippery, moss-covered slide — which causes Alicia to lose her knife in the pool — they make their way to the fort. They find a shooter’s nest with an AR stocked with ammunition. Suddenly, walkers attack, causing Alicia and Naomi to fall down the slide, but not before Alicia manages to take the long gun barrel with her. In the present, we see that she is still wielding it as a weapon, though she has sharpened it since first getting her hands on it. After an intense battle with some walkers at the bottom of the slide in the pool, Naomi tries to ditch Alicia, but the car is running on empty. Alicia catches up with her and Naomi admits that she doesn’t want to be with a group she’s about to lose anyway.

As a handful of characters struggle with the idea of wanting to leave the stadium, knowing that things are looking grim, Madison spots Mel waving to her and she goes down to have a chat with him. Mel reveals that he and Enis — the man Nick later kills — are brothers who lived on a cattle ranch in the country with some other families. After he tells her that some wildfires kicked up in the area, Madison thinks that Mel and Enis tried to convince the others to leave but no one listened. Madison tells Mel that he can join the stadium’s community and work together, and he says his own offer to join the Vultures is still on the table. They each decline, and Mel reveals that he and Enis had actually convinced the other families at the ranch that they could survive the wildfires in the area but they were wrong. Mel and Enis were the only ones who made it out alive, inevitably changing their perspective on what survival means now.

As Alicia helps Naomi find gas, Naomi tells her that she used to be a nurse in the ICU and after some time and experience, she quickly learned which people coming in would live and who wouldn’t. She warns Alicia that the stadium isn’t going to last and that she needs to convince Madison of that. In the end, though, all of the characters return to the stadium. Strand brings back his car of supplies and shows it to Madison, claiming he found it with Cole on the run. Nick and Luciana come back with the book of maps, and Nick tells his mom that he found a location on the map for them to scavenge where they can get seeds and fertilizer to start over, a place where he believes the Vultures haven’t ventured out to. When Alicia and Naomi return, they take Madison aside and we learn that after finding some medical supplies on their run, Alicia convinced Naomi to come back and to start an infirmary. While everyone in the past agrees to stay and fight for their lives at the stadium, in the present, Alicia, Strand, and Luciana say that they should have talked Madison into leaving.

After their confessionals on the day that everything changed, without revealing yet what came right after, John stops the van at the burial site for Nick. However, he, Morgan, and Al learn that the others weren’t being entirely honest. They had John drive them to a secret stash of weapons and ammunition they dig up in order to seek revenge on the Vultures. They tell Al that they no longer need her help finding the Vultures because they found a paper on Enis’ body that revealed their meet-up location. They ask Al to join them and help them if she really wants to see how their story ends, but John asks Al to help him find Laura instead. She eventually chooses to go with the vengeful trio, unable to resist learning the rest of their story. Before they take off for revenge, Morgan makes them bury Nick and pay their final respects.

After Morgan places a bluebonnet on Nick’s grave, he and John watch as the others load up the SWAT van with all of the supplies they’ve just dug up. John spots a familiar backpack and grabs it, saying that it belonged to Laura. He rifles through it, finding his matching white-handled revolver with his initials J.D. carved into the handle, confirming that it was Laura’s pack. In a surprising twist, it’s revealed that Naomi is Laura, but in an even more shocking turn of events, Alicia tells John bluntly that Naomi is dead. According to Luciana, Naomi didn’t make it out of the stadium. John, trapped between denial and grief, declines to join the others in revenge. Morgan decides to stay with John and tells Al to go. Al promises to find out what happened to Naomi and says she’ll come back for them. As the group drives away, Morgan and John stand on the dark road as John tells Morgan that he was right about how being on your own is better.

The promo for next Sunday’s episode, airing on May 13, takes us into John’s past covering the time when he and Naomi, or Laura, first met and how her arrival forced him to change his ways.