Fear the Walking Dead, S2 Ep9 – Los Muertos

This week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead focuses on two of the three disparate groups of main characters, catching up with Madison, Alicia, Strand, and Ofelia while also exploring the new community Nick finds himself becoming a part of. The episode had its fair share of the usual blood and guts, walker-smashing action, and then ended on a perhaps ill-advised cliffhanger.

After last week’s midseason premiere that focused on Nick and his journey, I didn’t expect to see so much of him again in this episode. But I’m not really complaining since Nick has proven to be one of the most likable characters in Fear the Walking Dead and as evidenced by his actions here, he remains as resourceful as ever. Because though he makes reckless decisions like trying to steal from a dangerous gang who owns a grocery store, he still managed to talk his way out of it. But the people in his new community might not always be so forgiving and Nick might have made a downpayment for future trouble.

And somehow Nick found himself with another cult-ish group who had similar beliefs to Celia when it came to the nature of the walkers. But this group was led by a charismatic leader who claimed to have survived a walker bite. Whether this claim is true and there’s an actual chance that someone is immune to the virus or if it’s all a bunch of elaborate lies remains to be seen. But by the end Nick looks like he’s beginning to fall for their crazy belief system. While their ideas are strange, having some characters take a more religious interpretation of the chaos in the world during the zombie apocalypse is intriguing.

Madison, Alicia, Strand, and Ofelia, a strange combination, somehow stuck together and found themselves at an abandoned hotel. And though the group seemed fairly solid at the start they soon started making boneheaded decisions like splitting up and getting drunk. While the latter activity paved the way for an intriguing bonding session between Madison and Strand (one of the other truly fascinating characters of Fear the Walking Dead), it was still incredibly stupid for them to let their guard down and get intoxicated in an environment that clearly requires that their senses be alert at all times.

No doubt they will sorely regret their decision as their drunken ranting not only made them more vulnerable, but also caused so much noise as to attract a horde of walkers who hurled themselves out the hotel windows just to get to their prey. While this led to a very tense ending of the episode, having a cliffhanger this early in the half season isn’t exactly a great decision.

Elsewhere in the hotel, Alicia manages to take a hot shower while Ofelia disappears somewhere. Maybe she might prove to be as mysterious as her father.

We still haven’t caught up with Travis and Chris, wherever they are, but it looks like we’ll be seeing what they’ve been up to in the next episode of Fear the Walking Dead: