How The Internet Reacted To The Cruel Twist In This Week’s ‘Fear The Walking Dead’

In this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “El Matadero,” showrunner Scott Erickson and writer Alan Page played a cruel trick on fans of the series. It wasn’t enough that they killed off the entirety of the Broken Jaw Ranch last week, or that they killed off Jake Otto the week before. This week, they killed off Ofelia. In fact, she was bitten in last week’s episode, although most people didn’t realize it. Watching it again, it’s clear when she was bitten. The walker caught in the ventilation fan fell on top of her and took a chuck out of her clavicle.

It wasn’t cruel enough, however, to simply kill her. Nope: After being bitten, Ofelia survived many many hours longer. How long, exactly? Long enough to drive from Broken Jaw Ranch and across the Mexico border, where she survived until nightfall hopped up on pain meds. She died about 30 seconds before her father, Daniel, arrived from the Tijuana dam. That’s right: After splitting Ofelia and Daniel apart in the season two midseason finale, they have been teasing their reunion for the last six or seven episodes. And just as they were about to finally see each other again, Ofelia croaks. Cruel twist, bro.

At least Daniel got to put his daughter down before she resurrected.
In either respect, Fear the Walking Dead fans reacted strongly on Twitter to Ofelia’s death, which didn’t even get a chance to be bittersweet. It was all bitter.

Fans first fear that Daniel wouldn’t make it in time to say goodbye to Ofelia.

Then fans react when Ofelia asks Madison to put her down before Daniel arrives.

But she didn’t make it, dying mere seconds before Daniel arrived.

The news of Ofelia’s death is shocking, but not entirely surprising. The actress who plays Ofelia, Mercedes Mason, announced that she was pregnant in August (she’s married to David Denman, aka Roy from The Office), and while The Walking Dead universe has accommodated pregnancies many, many times, Mason may have decided that she wanted to leave the show. Or, her death may have been planned well in advance.

In either respect, RIP Ofelia, and best of luck to Mercedes Mason.

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