Episode 14 Is Another New Season 7 Low

I don’t want to waste my time or yours so I’ll be brief with this review of Fear The Walking Dead’s latest awful excuse for an episode of television.

Basically here’s what happens: Strand tricks Alicia into coming into the tower and Daniel tags along because he thinks Ofelia is in there, because Luciana lied to him. That lie prompted Wes to join up with Strand, where he’s rapidly become a True Believer in both Strand, his methods, and the promise of the tower itself.

Strand then reveals to Alicia that he thinks of her as his daughter and just wants to prove to her that he can create something beautiful where everyone can be safe. He doesn’t explain why he had to go full villain to do that and start throwing people off the roof, hiring assassins to kill children etc. Seems an odd way to go about achieving his stated goal, though by the end of the episode he’s flip-flopped and decided that Alicia will never forgive him so why should he play ball?

Wes, meanwhile, decides that Strand has gone soft and manages to turn Strand’s own men against him. In the course of like two episodes Wes has now become the Big Bad of Fear The Walking Dead. The same Wes that happily painted trees with Alicia back in the day is now even more wicked and evil than Strand has become. All of a sudden.

Daniel finds Charlie who they try to pass off as Ofelia before telling him the truth and he sits with Charlie because I guess she’s the closest thing he has to a daughter also. They have Charlie in a bandana like she’s a chemo patient or something. It’s very silly.

Wes finds them and there’s a big fight and Daniel shows up in the nick of time but he’s shot. Then Strand kills Wes with his saber and that’s it for Wes. He got to be a side character for a long time, a perfectly nice guy that brought virtually nothing to the table or the story, and then he got to be a villain for a couple episodes and then he died. These guys really know how to write a compelling character arc!

Alicia wants to destroy the beacon at the top of the tower because apparently once the light is out the zombies will disperse and the Good Guys can assault the tower. I thought Morgan single-handedly got all the zombies surrounding the tower to follow him but I guess not. I mean, that happened in last week’s episode so clearly it no longer applies to this week’s episode.

Strand and Alicia end up fighting on the roof and the beacon falls and breaks and the Heroes of Texas are able to start their tower invasion. Alicia hooks up her “transmitter” to the electrical gizmo that the beacon was hooked up to and radios everybody in Texas that she needs their help and they can build a community together. Surely all these random strangers will be totally trustworthy and fun to work with.

But alas, the tower catches fire and burns down and it looks like next week everyone will be out looking for yet another new safe place to live in. Because if there’s one thing that’s always been true about this show and The Walking Dead, it’s that if there is a community—good or bad—that our heroes come across, they’re 100% going to destroy it and then move on. Strand actually built a pretty decent little community and it only took a few weeks for Morgan and Alicia to ruin everything. Good job guys! Maybe next time go find your own damn office building. Texas has a few, I’m pretty sure.

So yeah, this was a very stupid episode, capping off a very stupid conflict over a stupid office building that is now a smoldering ruin. Strand is . . . sort of a good guy again thanks to him killing Wes, the true villain of this season. And now they’re all screwed and get to go hoof it through the nuclear wasteland that is Texas. What a joke.

I live-tweeted the episode as I watched and you can read those tweets below:

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