Fear the Walking Dead recap: 'Pablo & Jessica'  

Nick Jonas, Janelle Monae, James Corden and more at EW\'s ultimate pop culture festival.

'Fear the Walking Dead' showrunner on that crazy finish

'Fear the Walking Dead' recap: 'Do Not Disturb'

Based on the episode title, this week introduces us to Pablo and Jessica — or rather, their lasting effect on the survivors. Although neither actually make an appearance, they haunt the colony and hotel, but not as much as the show seems to suggest.

Continuing the pattern of filling in the gaps, we take a brief excursion to the past to see how Madison and Victor escaped the walkers in the bar. Decaying hands reach toward them in front of the counter as Victor shouts to make their way to the lobby. But that’s easier said than done. After hearing Alicia’s screams from afar, Madison ducks down into what looks like the kitchen in the hopes of finding an escape route, but a crawler walker is close behind.

She can’t find safe passage, but finds a way out by stabbing the creature with a broken bottle and slathering her and Victor in its blood. To Victor’s disgust, they are able to walk out into the lobby and barricade door, aside from one slip-up maneuvering over the bar. They start their search for Alicia and Ofelia, but find the truck they rode to the hotel is missing. Pointing out that “the dead don’t drive,” Victor presumes the girls drove away to safety, but Madison isn’t willing to accept that.

The pair run across to the next building over, and though the front door is locked, they climb up to a balcony through the construction scaffolding. The building is empty, as far as they can tell, so they catch their breath on the stairwell, where Madison explains that leaving is not in Alicia’s nature. Victor sticks with his stance, arguing she would if it meant surviving. He notes that she’s self-reliant, and Madison concedes, “Yeah, I made her that.”

They somehow managed to get to this point despite being drunk on tequila shots, something Victor now finally acknowledges by insisting Madison take a gulp from the water bottles he found. Soon they hear repeated knocking at a door upstairs that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a walker. As they get closer, they hear shouting, which they recognize as Alicia’s voice. Now we’re caught up to where we last left the characters: Madison embraces her daughter, and Victor asks Elena and Hector in Spanish, “Who the hell are you?”

RELATED: Hear what TV shows to watch and avoid this fall

Since we last left Nick at the colony, he’s seemingly been grappling with what Alejandro said about putting the community in danger by going off on the drug dealers. He sees the little girl who lost her father to the walkers beyond the wall crying on the street as an old woman comes to her side to console her. Holding a can of powdered milk, Nick walks into the hospital and finds Alejandro on the upper level.

He admits he screwed up the trade and wants to make amends. He suggests a way to buy the colony more supplies: Using the powdered milk, Nick wants to dilute the oxy they’ll trade with the dealers. That way, they’ll have more to trade for water and the dealers will hopefully be too consumed by their addictions to know the difference. “You’re a pharmacist. I’m a junky. Trust me,” he says.

-style montage ensues and shows Nick creating the new-but-not-improved oxy pills, and Alejandro is ultimately impressed by his “limited but refined skill set,” as Nick puts it. Though he’s apparently had an about-face when it comes to Alejandro and his beliefs, Nick still mentions this will offer the colony hope.

See Adam Driver in the poster for Jim Jarmusch\'s upcoming drama \'Paterson\'

\'Quantico\' season 1 blooper reel brings the laughs

\'Loosely Exactly Nicole\' creator spills on what to expect

Daniel Radcliffe won’t rule out playing Harry Potter again

John Oliver has big problems with birds (yes, birds)

TIFF 2016: EW Must List Party Red Carpet Arrivals