Do not read on unless you’ve seen season 2, episode 9 of “Fear the Walking Dead”, titled “Los Muertos”.
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Will the Faithful Outlast the Dead?
The ninth episode of Fear the Walking Dead’s second season starts with a bang, as Nick witnesses a man sacrifice himself to be eaten by walkers being kept inside the La Colonia enclosure while Luciana, Alejandro and the rest of the community watch on, chanting. I wasn’t sure we’d see Nick again this week since we spent so much time with him last week.
In the Fear the Walking Dead season 2 episode 9 promo video, Madison, Alicia and Strand enter a hotel that seems to be overrun by walkers while Nick carries on his unsafe assignment. We got a great look at Nick’s interactions with new characters Luciana and Alejandro, as well as a chance to catch up with Madison, Strand, Alicia, and Ofelia. With the group of survivors that we have, it’s definitely interesting to see more of what’s going on out in the city itself and how some aspects of commerce exists with those that have taken control of certain things – like a supermarket warehouse of sorts. They end up holed in an abandoned hotel only to find it’s filled with Walkers.
Nick can jump in with both feet with this cult if he wants. We predict he will fall victim to Alejandro’s unusual brand of cajolery.
In the latest episode, titled “Los Muertos”, it’s revealed that pharmacist and doctor Alejandro had been bitten by a walker and did NOT turn into a zombie. Nick shades his daughter from the view. She is clearly looking for Travis. What emerges here is an emotional tug of war between Alicia and her mother. “Mom! It’s me and you now, whether you like it or not”.
The survivors soon find out that Strand’s yacht – The Abigail – has been stolen, perhaps by the military. Their other option: to find shelter indoors.
The duo’s clashing philosophies are exposed this week as they share a heart to heart in the hotel. And it’s not like Alicia and Ofelia fare any better in either regard. When the group gets to the ocean, they find that the boat is no longer there.
There’s the in-show question, too, of what Alejandro meant by saying that everyone in the community had died and returned. First, the two wipe zombie blood on themselves and exit the compound.
In a somewhat revelatory scene, Luciana then tells Nick about their ritual – of a soul being given to the dead. Not only did Madison’s southern accent come through, but she revealed her former husband’s – Nick and Alicia’s father – dark past.
Luciana then takes Nick to a facility guarded by a Mexican gang that holds a seemingly endless amount of groceries and supplies. They trade medication – Alejandro’s oxycodone – for a cart-full of water.
Victor desperately wants to get back to the Abigail and Alicia is exhausted of being an afterthought to her mom every time Nick disappears. “So we protect them and they protect us from the humans, she sees it in a constructive way, a way that it doesn’t engage fear towards these people”, she added. They watched the entire sacrifice happen, chanting the entire time.
My first episode back, last night’s “Los Muertos”, reminded me of why I fell off the Walking Dead spinoff-train like a zombie tumbling over a hotel balcony railing.
At the hotel bar, Strand and Madison engage in a lively – and drunken – back and forth about the powers of seduction and how Nick has been adrift since birth. His father had a darkness. She had told her children that their father died because he fell asleep at the wheel. I know the dead don’t feel pain or anything, but after a ten-story fall, wouldn’t their bones be crushed?
Madison, Victor, Alicia, and Ofelia are all that are left of that group. The new colonia is tough, as expected, as it is led by gun-toting men. No clean Publix available so they have to go to the only store open to the public, and it’s run by some enterprising drug dealers. “This is a test”, he said.
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‘We have been chosen. “From death we come and to death we deliver ourselves!” Nick glimpses a bite mark on his shoulder. Meanwhile Madison and Strand drink their sorrows away at the bar and end up getting quite tipsy. Chow cross-cuts between this and Alejandro’s fiery sermon.
