USS Pennsylvania
Directed by Heather Cappiello
Teddy, Riley and Dakota prepare to launch the USS Pennsylvania's compliment of nuclear missiles, revealing that Riley was once the subs Weapons' Officer. Having been warned by Alicia, Morgan's group races to the Pennsylvania, finding the sub occupied by its reanimated crew while Luciana leads a smaller group to a Naval base in search of information to help them. Morgan, Strand, John, Grace, June, Dwight and Sherry fight their way through the sub, finding signs of an unknown catastrophe having befallen the crew, including one compartment with radiation levels indicating exposed radioactive material within despite the rest of the sub's radiation levels being safe. Leaving the others behind, Morgan and Strand press on, but after getting cornered by walkers, Strand breaks Morgan's axe, stealing the head and leaves Morgan to fend off the walkers alone while he continues on. Strand is nearly killed by Dakota, but is saved at the last moment by Morgan who knocks Dakota unconscious. Using key cards recovered from the zombies, Morgan and Strand manage to enter the control room, but not before Teddy and Riley are able to launch one nuclear missile. The two reveal that the missile contains ten warheads all targeted on locations in Texas and can't be stopped. Morgan allows Teddy and Riley to leave and angrily blames Strand for their failure to stop the cult before sending him away as well.
Tropes:
- The Bad Guy Wins: Teddy and Riley succeed in launching a nuclear rocket with at least ten warheads at Texas.
- Insane Troll Logic: Mixed with Never My Fault. Strand throws Morgan to the walkers but when Morgan returns unharmed, realizes he only slowed them down. He tries to claim that had he not done what he did, they wouldn't have made it this far, and Morgan calls him on his bullshit. Strand's sweating and nervousness shows he does realize he may have just doomed them all.
- It's All About Me: Strand throws Morgan to the walkers so that he can claim all the credit for stopping Teddy and prove Alicia wrong about him.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Strand points out the obvious to Morgan about Dakota - that she's a sociopath who cannot be rehabilitated and is just a danger to those around her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Strand loses his composure as he realizes that the fallout of throwing Morgan to walkers just bought Teddy the time he needed to achieve his goal.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Strand's actions just lead to more bickering and delays him and Morgan from stopping Teddy. They were only seconds too late, so they could have stopped him had Strand not wanted to seize the glory of saving the day.
- Not Worth Killing: Morgan doesn't kill Teddy despite having him dead to rights, too furious and distraught over his success and figuring he's going to die anyway.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Teddy finally loses his cool for a second when he finally recognizes John's voice, since John was the one who put him in jail for what was intended to be the rest of his life.
