Fear the Walking Dead – Children of Wrath

By starrymag | July 20, 2017

By: Tara Donahue

We pick up in part two of the mid-season finale with a scene from last season. It’s Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) walking along a dirt road with her jug of water. It seems we’re finally going to learn what happened. As we know, the last time we saw her she had encountered Jeremiah Otto (Dayton Callie) who welcomed her to America soon after she crossed through a fence from Mexico.

 

After learning (and being surprised) that Ofelia is American and just trying to get to Santa Fe to check on her fiancé, Jeremiah gives her a drink of water and tells her she’s free to go. She asks for a ride, but he tells her no. She wouldn’t be comfortable there because there aren’t many “brown people” there and there’s no use for her at the ranch. Ofelia spits at his feet and he leaves her behind, in the desert.

 

Ofelia’s stumbling through the desert and she’s not doing well. She starts to hallucinate her father, Daniel (Ruben Blades), who’s trying to look out for her. She’s sunburned and blistered and she lays in the sand, losing consciousness.

 

Some time later a horse approaches. It’s Walker (Michael Greyeyes). He finds her and discovers she’s still alive. After giving her some water, he puts her on the horse and takes her back to the Black Hat Reservation. He bathes her and brings her food before they make their introductions and he tells her to get some rest.

 

Back in current time, Ofelia is running from Madison (Kim Dickens), desperate to find a vehicle to escape in. Just as she gets into a truck and starts it, Madison punches out the driver’s side window and jerks the door open. She drags Ofelia out and starts beating her, demanding to know what she’s done.

 

Jake (Sam Underwood) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) are helping out at the infirmary. Madison comes in and explains that Ofelia put some kind of powder in the coffee. Alicia realizes that Ofelia coming back, with all the bruises, was only a ploy. It was a hit on the militia. Nick (Frank Dillane) is burning up with a fever, but without knowing what the powder was there’s not much they can do. Madison tells them to give him antibiotics and keep him alive.

 

Madison has a gun on Ofelia, making her drive to the reservation. She doesn’t understand why she would do this as they were her people, Nick was her friend and they treated her like family. But now The Nation is her family. Madison is going to test that theory as they pull into the motel and she drags her inside with the gun to her head. She wants to know what the powder was because it’s killing her son. Walker (Michael Greyeyes) tells her it was anthrax cultivated from animal hides and there’s no cure. He tells her if Nick is strong, he will survive. His fight isn’t with the Clark family. He wants her to take her family and leave the ranch. But she tells him they’ve fought too hard and lost too much, they aren’t running anymore. “Then you’ll die,” Walker tells her.

 

Elsewhere, we see Strand (Colman Domingo) scavenging after Daniel left him behind. He looks out a window and sees something we never expected to see again – The Abigail. It’s half sunken, but mostly in tact and he makes his way out to it. When he climbs aboard, he finds several zombies and dispatches them quickly.

 

At Broke Jaw Ranch, Nick’s throwing up and tells Alicia it’s almost like old times (from his addict days). Madison arrives and informs everyone the powder was anthrax. It was meant to weaken the militia so they could attack without opposition. Madison tells Troy (Daniel Sharman) to recruit all able bodied people since there’s nothing left of the militia now. Jake snaps and yells at her, telling her she doesn’t lead the ranch. Neither do you, Jake and maybe you should learn some respect. You are dating her daughter, after all. He storms out and Alicia and Troy follow.

 

When they find him, he tells them that Madison’s right. Arm up everyone who isn’t sick. War is the last resort, but they are at that point. There’s no more leverage. Or is there? Alicia has an idea of how to get some.

 

Back on The Abigail, Strand slips on an old jacket and pops open a bottle of champagne. It’s good to be home!

 

Nick is feeling better, but Jake doesn’t want to risk uncuffing him from the bed. Others could use the bed more than him, like Jake, for instance. Nick knows he’s sick. But Jake insists he’s fine, it’s nothing. People can’t see him suffering right now, they need him. Nick can’t be handcuffed to a bed when an attack happens so Jake relents and uncuffs him. They talk about Jeremiah and how he’s the reason all of this is happening.

 

This makes Nick think of something and he heads to the adobe, looking at the bullet holes Jeremiah shot in the floor last week. He starts pulling up the planks in the floor.

 

Ofelia tells Walker about her relationship with the Clarks and how they took her in. He reminds her that she volunteered for what she did. She’s upset because he didn’t tell her it was anthrax. That turned her into a killer, but he argues that she saved lives by what she did. She saved the entire Nation. He saved her life in that desert and now that she did this, the debt is paid.

 

Outside fires are burning and everyone on the reservation rush to put them out. It’s just a distraction and we see Madison and Alicia stealing the trailer full of relics that Walker had shown her earlier. This is the leverage Alicia knew they could get. Every episode, Alicia proves more and more just how useful and smart she really is. She really is becoming the Carol of the group.

 

In the meantime, Nick has found what he was digging for. He brings it to Jeremiah and it’s a skull with a bullet hole in the forehead. He wants to know who it is. Jeremiah tells him a story of how when Troy and Jake were young the local Indian tribe decided the ranch belonged to them and caused a lot of trouble. Jeremiah, Vernon (Hugo Armstrong), Russell (Worth Howe) and Phil (Rocky McMurray) killed three of them, including Walker’s uncle. But the skull is actually Walker’s father, who came looking for his brother. Jeremiah and Nick have some tense words, the latter finally realizing the former’s true colors.

 

Nick shows the skull to Madison and Alicia. Madison doesn’t think it changes anything, but Alicia disagrees. It changes everything. She knows they’re on the wrong side, but her mother argues that sides don’t matter anymore as the only thing that matters is the future. Alicia, in one of the most powerful scenes she’s had the whole series, loses her temper on her mother. She’s angry. She thinks her mother is heartless and worse than the Ottos, but she goes a little too far bringing up her dead father. Madison tells her she has no idea what she carries and that someone has to be strong and keep everyone together.

 

Strand is still drinking his champagne aboard The Abigail and playing with the radio. He comes across someone singing in Russian and makes contact with him. It’s a Russian Cosmonaut who is still stuck in space and unable to return because of what happened. They talk for a while and play a game of famous last words before the radio goes out.

 

Walker and Madison meet and she tells him his artifacts are unharmed. He again asks her why she’s thrown in with the Ottos. She’s trying to negotiate peace and offers to return his relics, in return they keep the ranch. But Walker isn’t in agreement. He feels like Jeremiah Otto has had his time and his time is over. She gives him his father’s skull and he returns it, telling her it isn’t his father – it’s just an old white man’s shame. Madison returns to the group and tells them that Walker doesn’t care about the reliquary, he wants the ranch. They have until sundown tomorrow to clear out. Or die.

 

After losing contact with the cosmonaut, Strand has decided to move on. He pours liquor all over the floors inside The Abigail and sets it on fire. We see him walking away as it explodes.

 

Back in the Clark’s bunkhouse, Madison tells her kids a story. It’s a story we quickly learn is about her and how she killed her own father because he was an alcoholic who beat her mother. Nick and Alicia look stunned and Madison tells them that was the exact way her mother looked at her, too. But she’d live with that look and do it a thousand times to protect her and to protect them. She tells them she’s going to talk to Jeremiah to try and convince him to set aside his pride and make peace with the enemy.

 

Jeremiah’s barricading the windows in his office when she finds him. He tells her he built the house as a hold out in case they were ever overrun or under siege. He has supplies and weapons in the basement and they’re welcome to hole up there too, if it comes to it. They share a drink as he thanks her for standing by his boys and for trying to stop what’s coming. Madison tells him that she couldn’t come to an agreement with Walker and that it was a lie, there was a way to secure peace. Jeremiah laughs, joking that Walker probably wanted his scalp. Madison doesn’t laugh. He asks if she’s there to kill him, but she tells him she’s not going to disappoint her kids any further. So, he’s going to do it himself.  She pushes a gun towards him, but he’s not going to do it. He doesn’t care about his sons or his legacy.

 

Someone comes in. It’s Nick. Jeremiah starts insulting him and talking about Madison, how much she was like him. But before he can finish that sentence, Nick shoots him in the head with the gun Jeremiah gave him. Madison jumps into action, grabs the gun and makes it look like it was self inflicted, telling Nick to do exactly as she says.

 

Troy and Jake come running in. Madison is sitting at the desk across from their dead father. A haunting version of “Stand by Me” plays over the ending montage. We see Troy and Jake leaving in a truck with their father’s body and Madison standing with her kids, watching from the porch of the main house. At dawn, she goes to meet Walker and hands him Jeremiah Otto’s head in a bag. Their deal is complete. Madison said she would do whatever she had to, including taking over the ranch, and it looks like she’s succeeded.

 

What will happen next? Will the remaining residents share the ranch with Walker’s people? How will Troy and Jake deal with the loss of their father? We’ll find out when Fear the Walking Dead returns September 10th!