SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2, EPISODE 7 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
Let’s just say this right out of the gate. The midseason finale for Fear The Walking Dead was not a good episode. Characters continued to make odd decisions that seemed out of character and things just happened in a way that was off. Nothing really seemed to make sense character wise aside from a few things, making it seem like the character decisions over the past two episodes were meant to just get everyone to where they were at the end of this episode.
The episode started off Inception style with Daniel having a dream of himself as a kid, only to wake up in a dream where Ofelia is ripping her own face off. It was really weird and further established that things are not okay with Daniel after his sudden turn last week. Things jumped over to Thomas’ room where Strand just shot him in the head after he died and Celia is pissed at Strand for not going through with the suicide plan. She tells him that he has a day to bury Thomas and after he has to leave along with the rest of our core group. Meanwhile, Travis is looking for Chris. He spots him in the distance and proceeds to chase after him so he can bring him back to the compound.
The following morning Travis is still going after him and comes across a walker that Chris killed, taking the knife out of its head. Chris watches from not too far away and keeps on running away. Travis eventually comes across a small town of sorts and hears a noise in a nearby house, so he goes to investigate it. He almost gets attacked by the home owner, but the man gives him some water and allows him to rest after seeing that Travis’ feet are hurt pretty badly due to all the walking that he’s done.
At the compound tensions are high and Daniel is on edge, sharpening his blade while some of the residents give him dirty looks. At the same time, Madison tells Nick and Alicia to start packing their stuff and to get as many supplies as they can for when they leave later. In addition, she tells Nick to stay away from Celia because she’s dangerous and the people there at the compound aren’t their friends. Nick doesn’t follow her instructions and later walks into the compound with Louis’ zombified body.
This upsets Madison but pleases Celia. She wants Nick to stay at the compound with her, but he wants his family to be able to stay with him as well. Celia feels that wouldn’t be a good idea because they’re dangerous and destroy everything, but Nick manages to get her to allow it on the condition that he’s responsible for their actions. Strand is still not allowed to stay though.
While taking a shower to clean the walker blood off of him, Madison brings Nick some clean clothes and asks him why he’s changing so much. Nick tells her that she just doesn’t understand and that they’re able to stay at the compound because of what he did. At this point it’s clear to Madison that Nick has totally bought into Celia’s beliefs.
Meanwhile, Strand is digging a hole to bury Thomas’ body when Daniel comes and asks him not to bury it there. His reason is that he believes the place is unholy and that Thomas will just come back to haunt Strand. Strand can tell that something is up with Daniel though and asks him about it, but Daniel just walks off. He finds Ofelia and grabs her, telling her that he’s taking her to her mother who’s just outside the gate. Ofelia pulls away out of fear, but Daniel pulls back. This causes some bystanders to get involved and separate the two, leading to Daniel cutting one of them in the face. They manage to subdue him though and take him away.
Madison then goes to Strand and asks him to try and help her with Nick because she’s worried about him, but he knows that it’s because Nick’s an addict that latches onto what he can. In this case, Celia managed to get her claws in him. He then offers to let Madison come with him on the boat when he’s kicked out, but she doesn’t bite because of Travis and Daniel. Shortly after this they hold Thomas’ funeral. Celia gives the eulogy and after everyone drops some dirt on the coffin she tells Strand to leave, but he refuses because he says he isn’t done yet. Ofelia then asks Celia about her father, but Celia refuses to let her see him.
Catching up with Travis, he’s finally recovered and the homeowner gave him a pair of new shoes as well. He tells Travis that Chris went east and is trying to usher him out the house, but Travis realizes that someone else is in the building. He then bursts into a room and sees Chris holding the man’s son at gunpoint. Travis manages to knock the gun out of his hand and chases him down, eventually tackling him down to the ground. Chris even tries to grab Travis’ knife to use against him, but Travis knocks it out of his hand. Chris tells him that he feels like a monster and is no good, so he can’t go back to everyone else. Some time later, Nick appears to bring Travis and Chris back. Travis tells him that he can’t go back because Chris can’t go and he needs to be a father now, so to tell Madison that he never found them. On that note, Nick gives Travis his knife and then heads back to the compound.
Back at the compound, Daniel is tied up somewhere and Celia is bringing him food that he refuses to eat. She recognizes that he’s afraid of the dead from his past and wants him to confess his sins to her. He refuses to do that as well and begins to hear his dead wife speak to him. Once Celia leaves his wife appears in front of him as a hallucination. He talks to her about how he never buried her and how all of his sins are eating him up now. We then get another flashback to when Daniel was a kid at the river, and we see the first person that he ever killed. Things come back to the present and a guard comes to untie Daniel so he can eat, but Daniel knocks him out and frees himself before going to do something that’ll free his wife’s soul.
In the meantime, Madison goes to Celia to try and get her to let Strand stay at the compound, but Celia won’t budge on her stance. She tells Madison that they have to see the walkers the way that she does if she wants to stay, to which Madison says that she wants to understand. Celia takes her down to the room with all the walkers she’s keeping and the two of them go inside it. Madison is sneaky though and walks back out, locking Celia in there with all of the walkers. Goodbye Celia! You certainly won’t be missed. Daniel then comes shortly after and sets all the walkers on fire along with himself. Goodbye Daniel! You definitely will be missed.
As all of this is going on, Strand is being escorted off the premises. He gets in a truck when he sees that the compound is on fire and is about to leave when he finds Alicia, Ofelia, and Madison. He picks them up and tells them they have to go before the residents and other walkers get to them. Madison doesn’t get in just yet though because she sees Nick in the distance. She tries to get him to come with them, but he’s upset that they burned the place down and proved Celia right. They’re just monsters who destroy everything. He then turns back and joins the walkers while Madison leaves with Strand, Ofelia, and Alicia.
Other thoughts:
- As if this storyline wasn’t paralleling the farm storyline in season two of The Walking Dead enough, it totally ended the same way. Everyone split up, the safe haven burning to the ground, and walkers on the loose. The walkers on the loose may not have been the same ones that were in the compound, but it was very similar to the end of season two. If anything, this storyline didn’t get dragged on for the rest of the season so that’s a good thing.
- Madison locking Celia in the room with the walkers was cold, but totally in character for her. I could believe her doing that to keep her kids safe, as she already didn’t really trust Celia and wanted to eliminate her from the equation. Why not just crush her beliefs and eliminate her at the same time?
- The whole storyline with Travis and Chris is interesting since they now have no one else with them and they have to deal with Chris’ worsening mental state. I wonder how long they’ll be on their own once the show comes back in August. The rest of the season? A few episodes? Regardless of how long, it’ll be interesting to see how much further down the rabbit hole Chris goes since now he’s apparently not averse to holding children hostage and at gunpoint too.
- Daniel’s dead now which is just a giant gut punch, if only because he was one of the characters that had a good head on his shoulders and had some interesting history to him. It’s a shame that we only ever got fleeting glimpses and hints at it before the show killed him off. His whole sudden psycho turn just seems way too rushed and like it was done kill someone off in the midseason finale. It would’ve been better if we could get more of his history and a few more episodes to truly understand why he’s cracking the way he is.
- As for Nick, like I said last week it’s just so odd that he would buy into Celia’s crazy beliefs so easily. Sure Strand offered some sort of explanation for it, but it’s still not enough for me. Nick knows that the walkers are dangerous and that the people they once were are gone. He saw it happen to his girlfriend who was eating people and he saw it happen to his friend Calvin, in addition to all the other walkers he’s faced. The fact that he would leave his family to go and join the walkers just takes things to a whole other level that I never would’ve thought of. It looks like we’ll be getting a full episode dedicated to following Nick after he’s joined the walkers in August, so maybe he’ll come to his senses then.
This was a pretty disappointing episode for Fear The Walking Dead. It’s not as bad as the second episode of the season that was essentially filler, but it’s just above it. In addition to paralleling season two of TWD, this episode just didn’t really work because of the character issues that it faced. We now have three separate character groups to follow now though, so we’ll just have to see how things play out from here. See you in August FTWD!
TheComfySpot 