AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead has been playing with the timeline of events a bit this season, and episode 5 is no different. At the end of the previous episode, John learned that Laura’s real name was Naomi, and that she didn’t make it out of the baseball stadium. Now even though we know her name was Naomi, we’re going to be calling her Laura in this recap for simplicity’s sake. ‘Laura’ is the story of how John met, fell in love with, and lost Laura. The episode was written by Anna Fishko and directed by Michael E. Satrazemis.
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Scrabble | The episode takes place mostly in the past, opening before John (Garret Dillahunt) and Laura (Jenna Elfman) met. John is living on his own, in a house running off a generator and surrounded by a ditch to protect from the infected. He’s right on a river, and infected occasionally turn up that he quickly disposes of with an ax. At night, he eats popcorn, watches movies, and plays Scrabble with himself. One night he hears something outside and goes to investigate, he finds an injured woman barely conscious in a small boat. He carries her in and determines she hasn’t been bit, but will need to rest before she can leave.
The Guns | Over the course of the next few weeks John and Laura live together, getting to know details about one another, but she still never reveals her true name to him. One night she sees him polishing a set of very nice pistols, but he never uses them. Once Laura is healed she intends to leave, but they discover the bridge down the river needs to be repaired to prevent the infected from washing up. She wants to help him to repay him for helping her. They repair the bridge but get into a bit of trouble. John refuses to use the gun Laura snuck with them. He reveals he accidentally killed someone as a cop and now he doesn’t use guns as a result. After getting out of that bind, John gives Laura one of the pistols for when she leaves.
Sad Goodbye | John finally admits to Laura that he loves her and doesn’t want her to leave. She kisses him and it’s insinuated that they sleep together. But when John wakes up he is alone. Laura has left, just like she kept saying she would. But she did leave him a not with the Scrabble letters, saying she loves him too and she’s sorry. The last few seconds of the episode are John and Morgan (Lennie James) together, John had just finished telling Morgan the story we just watched. He’s clearly hurt by the loss of Laura/Naomi. But we still haven’t seen her body, i’m not counting her dead just yet!
Fear the Walking Dead airs Sunday’s at 9pm on AMC!