Synopsis for 3×07 and 3×08: Things between Walker and the Ottos escalate beyond what Jake can control and a familiar face returns. Madison is repeatedly reminded to stay in her lane and she repeatedly refuses.
Meanwhile, neither of them told their parents where they were headed and Madison is concerned while Jeremiah thinks they should wait for them to return. Nick volunteers to go find them, but Jeremiah suggests he work with Troy instead to train to protect the Broke Jaw farm and the people.
Alicia and Jake are meeting with Walker, who learns that only Jeremiah is still alive of the original four that founded the ranch. They argue, though a parley is not immediately taken off the table, when Walker pauses for them to share a meal. Ofelia serves them, but doesn’t immediately acknowledge Alicia when they make eye contact.
Later, they meet up and Alicia confronts her about abandoning them at the hotel. She tries to explain to Alicia that no one killed the Trimbols like she assumes and they’re quickly interrupted by a parley agreement. Jake is going back with a scout to deliver the terms while Alicia volunteers to stay behind as a hostage.
Nick blandly opens up about why he needs to join the Militia as something to do and Troy hands him a gun. He also cuts off all his hair and looks like a completely new person, it’s jarring how unrecognizable he is.
Ofelia returns with Jake and is confronted by Madison and Nick before he can reach his father. At the same time, Alicia is learning that she’ll be contributing as much as she can while she’s with Walker – even if it’s supposed to be a quick negotiation. He also confirms to Alicia that they shot down the helicopter and things turn tense.
Jake speaks with his father about the terms, which include giving Walker their bottled water reserves. It’s not too much trouble on their part because they have wells, but the drought hit Walker’s people hard. Unfortunately, Jeremiah won’t play ball with them even for Alicia’s sake. With no other options, Madison goes to Troy for an extraction party.
After they come to a mutual understanding of hatred, Walker tries to share with Alicia some of his history with the Ottos. He has his grandfather’s bones, dug up from a grave to save him from the Ottos, and shares with her his thoughts on current events. He thinks this was all planned and that in the end the land will be returned to the first humans when everything is over.
Jeremiah has a chat with Ofelia that’s menacing at best. At the same time, Troy’s militia come for Alicia – and she’s not exactly ready to run off with them. Their location is tipped off and Troy kills one of Walker’s men, which turns into a firefight. They escape in the truck, but it’s too late to avoid a major confrontation with Walker now. Jake, Alicia, and Jeremiah are all not thrilled by Madison’s brazen manipulation of the situation.
The next morning, Jake and Troy argue over going back to Walker with water – with Troy assuming Jake won’t come back if he makes the delivery. Ofelia is leaving with Jake to go back to Walker and urges Alicia to go with her without explaining why. When he meets with Walker, it is only Ofelia’s warning that spares Jake’s life and he’s tasked with returning to his father with a warning.
Surprisingly, Ofelia is beaten and dropped off at the gates of the Broke Jaw Ranch at some point after Jake has returned home. She tells Jeremiah that Walker thought she gave them intel to get into their base and Jeremiah gives Madison the task of watching over her.
Troy’s men are getting antsy about waiting for Walker’s next move against the ranch. Nick volunteers to be the lone suicide gunman should they run into trouble, but Troy tells him that he’ll be staying behind on this scouting mission. At home, Alicia questions Madison’s motives when saving her and seems to be concerned that they’re not fighting on the right side.
Out on the perimeter, Troy’s militia doesn’t see anything happening, but suddenly they’re feeling sick to their stomachs and vomiting. They fall to the ground seizing and eventually come back after their deaths, resulting in chaos on the ranch. Nick seems to think it was Ofelia who did something to the militia, but before they can confront her, he collapses and she tries to escape.
“Children of Wrath,” the midseason finale, begins in stark contrast to how the previous episode ended. It backtracks to Ofelia crossing the border into America and shows her meeting up with Jeremiah. He refuses to help her because she’s “brown” and there aren’t very many of those on the ranch, opting to leave her out in the desert.
With few resources, she has a difficult time continuing on and hallucinates Daniel giving her comfort. Sometime after that, Walker finds her and brings her back to Black Hat. He takes care of her and helps her to recover. From there, it cuts back to her trying to escape Broke Jaw Ranch before Madison pulls her from a truck and starts beating her.
In the morning, the Ottos are tending to the ones in their militia who made it – and it’s not many. Without knowing what Ofelia put into the coffee, Madison has no choice but to return with her to Black Hat in order to keep Nick alive. Ofelia tries to explain to her that it was only supposed to make the militia sick so that they could enter the ranch unopposed, but she’s not feeling very sympathetic. Walker reveals to her that it was anthrax that was used to poison the militia and, without any cure, she leaves.
We also finally catch up with Strand, who has a large backpack and is trekking through an abandoned building alone when he notices the Abigail wrecked on the shoreline. He boards, only to find many of the undead as passengers. After a struggle, he manages to clear the boat of the unwanted guests, but it’s still beached and nothing works.
Returning to the ranch, Madison tells them about the anthrax and tries to make a plan with Jake and Troy, only to be shut down by Jake. Troy, Jake, and Ofelia leave her, but have their own meeting to decide what to do next. Alicia thinks they should continue talking, but Jake thinks they’re at their last resort: war. She seems to have another idea before they start arming every able-bodied person on the ranch.
Nick tries to talk Jake into freeing him from his bed, which he ultimately relents and does. When Nick asks about Jeremiah’s whereabouts, Jake tries to warn him that he’ll be disappointed by the man. Nick finds him burying the dead, but continues walking. He digs into the floorboards of the house he fixed up and brings Jeremiah a skull, asking who it is.
Ofelia confronts Walker about the Clarks and is upset that he never told her it was anthrax that she was putting into their drinks. She accuses him of turning her into a killer, but he thinks that she saved them all. He recalls their first meeting, when he saved her, and tells her that the debt has been paid. A fire breaks up their touching moment as Alicia and Madison move to take a trailer. The rest of the militia enters into another gunfight as Madison steals their trailer.
Jeremiah tells Nick a story from when Troy and Jake were children. The Native Americans tried to take the ranch back from the Ottos once by making trouble, so the four original founders killed three Native Americans one night – one man being Walker’s uncle. When Walker’s father came around looking for his brother, they killed him too and that’s the skull that Nick dug up. Through this story, Nick realizes that Jeremiah was just making sure the bodies under the house stayed buried while he was fixing up the house. Jeremiah insists that the land is owned by whoever can hold it, which Nick thinks they’ll soon find out.
Madison, Alicia, and Troy return with the trailer, just as the Native Americans crest the hill above the ranch in search of their relics. In a private family meeting, Alicia argues with Madison that they’re on the wrong side of this fight – and Nick seems to be with Alicia. They inform Alicia that Troy killed the Trimbols and she unloads on her mother, but Madison serves it right back.
On the Abigail, Strand hears Russian over the radio. When he tries to hail them, they inform him that they’re on a Russian spacecraft. The cosmonaut tells him that he saw the lights go out all over the world and has accepted the fact that he’ll never return to Earth. They bond for a few moments over famous quotes before Strand loses the signal. Later, Strand torches the Abigail and returns to land with a smile on his face.
After their fight, Madison meets with Walker and gives him the new terms of their parley. He doesn’t want the return of his artifacts for the safety of the ranch. When she tries to offer him his father’s skull, he rejects it in favor of the ranch. Madison delivers the bad news: they have to leave the ranch immediately or die.
In an attempt to explain some things to her children, Madison opens up about her past in Montgomery. She tells them about how her father was an alcoholic who cheated at the polls to keep him in office as a councilman. She admits to killing her father after having had enough and both Nick and Alicia are shocked. Her next plan is to talk Jeremiah into making peace… by convincing him to commit suicide. Unfortunately, he refuses, but Nick joins them and does what his mother and Jeremiah won’t.
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