“The Door”
We open with John back at his old cabin contemplating suicide. Fortunately, he can’t go through with it, so he follows the walkers to the store he frequents. It’s there he runs into Dakota and Morgan. “I feel like I’m looking at a ghost,” John tells him. Dakota explains Morgan’s trying to build a place away her sister, when suddenly one of Ginny’s men enters the shop. He finds John’s supply log and radios his friends as Dakota and Morgan implore John to shoot him. John refuses and the man leaves, so the three of them head to the cabin.
Morgan catches John up on his new community and suggests they use Dakota as bait to lure Ginny to their lands to fight. Ginny radios Morgan and says he has Grace, June, and the rest of their friends locked up. She asks for Dakota in return and promises her rangers won’t let up until she’s back. After their call, Morgan tells John the universe is giving him a sign and he has to help them. John says he’s not right and can’t help them beyond getting them past the bridge. As the three of them load up the truck, a ranger shoots at them, hog-ties Morgan, and rides off. John, who just swore off killing, is forced to kill the ranger. Morgan gets up in pain as John finishes off the ranger before he can turn.
John buries the ranger and then helps Dakota and Morgan plan their next moves. The two of them try to make him feel better. “You gave me that family, man. You gotta help me get them back,” Morgan tells him. But John sticks to his guns and tells them he can only take them across the bridge. He then tells Morgan he’s getting a door to prevent the walkers from getting to him after he offs himself. “I just want it to be over, Morgan.”
Morgan joins John in his cabin and says, “It’s not your time…this is not how you should go out,”, before handing him the note his savior left him at the gulch. Morgan also reminds him he’s not his father and he can find his own reason to keep going. “Wouldn’t count on that,” John says. The two of them join Dakota in the truck on their way to the bridge. John hands her his gun “in case things get bumpy.”
Morgan opens the barricade as Dakota slowly drives through the walkers. They claw at her window as John and Morgan take them out from the truck bed. All goes well until a walker gets caught in the wheel, causing the alternator to give out. John jumps in to repair it, Dakota shoots a walker off him, and the car starts back up. She drives the walkers off the bridge and the three delight in their triumph. Morgan hands him an old photo of he and his dad and reminds him he doesn’t have to follow the same path. Morgan then radios Ginny and says he wants to meet her at John’s cabin, despite John’s objections. “YOU HAD NO RIGHT!” John screams as Morgan tells him he refuses to let him kill himself.
John and Dakota discuss their plans when Ginny arrives when Dakota trips and gets attacked by a walker. She manages to stab it in the head with a knife John recognizes. “Where’d you get this?” he demands, before figuring out she killed Cameron. She explains she killed him because he found out her way of escaping. “I can’t let you ruin this for me,” she says as she points John’s own gun at him. He tries talking her down and promises not to hurt her. Still, she blasts him in the heart with the revolver. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t always have to mean something, John,” she says before pushing him off the bridge.
John descends into the lake and takes a look at the picture of him and his father. He swims to the surface and says, “It’s not too late.” Dakota aims the gun at him again until Morgan arrives, forcing her to aim at Morgan. “What did you do?” he asks. She tells him John’s floating down the river with a bullet in his chest as Morgan notices the knife in her hand. He puts everything together as she tells him to let her be a part of his community. He knocks the gun out of her hand and holds his bat spear to her neck. She then reveals it was her who saved him at the gulch. Morgan can’t believe it but she says she heard his message and came to save him. She asks him to kill Ginny because he’s the only one who can end her.
Ginny, June, and the rangers arrive at John’s empty cabin as Morgan radios to tell them about John. June grabs the walkie and asks where he is. Morgan says he won’t help them until they find him in the river. Panicked, Ginny tells her people to find him. Elsewhere, Alicia, Dwight, and Charlie arrive at Morgan’s new community. Morgan radios them to warn against a possible battle with Ginny at their own doorstep. He tells Dwight to get Sherry and her people involved because they’ll need all the help they can get.
Back at the cabin, June spots John washed up on the shore. She rushes over in time to see him turn and slowly crawl towards her. June’s devastated. John grabs her wrist as she holds his hand one final time. She sadly plunges her knife into his skull, killing him for good. The man who saved her and stole her heart, her husband, is dead.
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