The A-story in this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “Skidmark,” concerns Daniel, who has been living alone in a warehouse for what appears to be a very long time. He’s spending his days disarming booby traps, listening to records, and hanging out with his cat, Skidmark. It appears to have been a lonely, solitary life, as each day passes by inconsequentially.
Meanwhile, Strand — who Daniel threatened two episodes ago to shoot in the face if he ever saw him again — is still endeavoring to steal Daniel’s plane so that he can save his friends. He recruits Sarah, Wendell, and Charlie in this effort, but Charlie finds herself trapped in the back seat of Daniel’s car as he drives it away. Of course, nothing gets by Daniel — when he left the warehouse to go disarm more booby traps, he took the plane’s instrument panel with him so that Strand couldn’t take the plane. He also realizes that Charlie is in his backseat under blankets, but the two end up bonding over music and some shared interests. We discover that Daniel inherited the warehouse from whoever it was that had been setting all the booby traps, essentially killing people so that this unknown person could have access to their supplies. Daniel took it upon himself to disarm the person’s booby traps. Charlie aids him with one, but it unleashes a small horde of zombies, which Daniel lures away for some reason. Left with no other choice, Strand has to use the plane’s propellors to kill the walkers and save Daniel, but it leaves the plane inoperable.
The storyline actually doesn’t make that much sense. We still don’t really understand why Daniel is in Texas, how he survived the events of the season 3 finale (with no apparent scarring after being shot in the face), or why he’s holding down the fort at the warehouse. The story seems largely tacked on to forge a bond between Charlie and Daniel, as well as redeem Strand in Daniels’ eyes. It’s much like the episode last season between Charlie and Alicia, where the writers basically take two people that hate each other and forge a bond in 42 minutes. The episode does hint, however, that we may find out more, after Daniel leaves the warehouse, allowing Strand and Company to take it over.
“There’s a reason I’ve been here for this long on my own,” Daniel tells Charlie. “I need to go and take care of it.” What that means for Fear, we have no idea. In fact, given Daniel’s sporadic appearances on the series, we may end up seeing a full episode devoted to Daniel with a full backstory on where he’s been since season three, why he took over the warehouse, and where he’s going now. Or we may not see him again until season 7. We just never know with Daniel. However, Daniel also said that he was saving a cigar that he got from a friend, and there is some suggestion that that cigar could have come from Abraham, who was in Texas before he went to Virginia. A flashback episode may allow Abraham to make an appearance.
Meanwhile, back where Morgan and Co. are stranded, Luciana and Dylan also bond over, of all things, The Little Prince (the series gotten a lot of mileage out of that book over the last two seasons). Its role in this episode is both metaphorical and literal. Metaphorically, Luciana tells Dylan it’s about going out, meeting new people, and finding new adventures, as he encourages Dylan to not only accept their help but join their group. In the literal sense, after Strand destroys his plane saving Daniel, Dylan tells Luciana to take a cue from the narrator in The Little Prince and fix their crashed plane herself, a suggestion she appears to take to heart.
In the meantime, after Luciana gains Dylan’s trust, he confesses to Morgan and Alicia that his brother and sister are still alive, and that they’d staged their deaths because they were scared of Morgan’s group. However, Dylan asks for Morgan and Alicia’s help, after Annie and Max encounter one of the members of CRM. Once Morgan and Alica arrive, however, the CRM soldier is already gone, but Morgan and Alicia do encounter what is essentially a child militia.
It turns out that Annie, Max, and Dylan had a lot of help setting up the zombie barriers, and what they were hiding was an entire group of children living at the epicenter of the zombie obstacles. The kids, we learn, are the children of the adults who died back at their camp, and while the kids know the danger of remaining behind, they can’t bring themselves to leave the place where their parents died. Morgan understands this as well as anyone because he remained behind in Atlanta after his wife died because he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, which of course led to his son Dwayne’s death.
In any case, as the child militia is leading Morgan and Alicia back to their camp, the CRM helicopter resurfaces and flies away, having apparently gotten what they came for. What exactly did they come for? Probably Althea, who is either an “A” or a “B,” the two unknown types of individuals CRM is seeking out. Althea, meanwhile, may very well be on her way to wherever it is that Rick Grimes is located.
Additional Notes
— Next week’s episode is focused on Althea and the helicopter people … or helicopter person. It appears as though it will be a flashback episode that covers where Al has been in the last few weeks. I have a feeling that the episode will either end with the helicopter flying away with a kidnapped Althea to wherever it is that Rick will end up, or that Althea will escape and rejoin the group, while the helicopter person flies away to get away from Althea.
— Here’s a clip from next week’s episode. From what it looks like, Althea escapes her captor and tracks down the helicopter, only to be confronted by her captor again.
Recall that the timeline is still not exactly synced up. About 18 months passed between the end of the All Out War and season 9 on The Walking Dead, which is when Rick died (before the 7 year time jump). It took Dwight about a year after the All Out War to get to Texas, so Fear the Walking Dead is still about six months behind Rick’s exit from The Walking Dead.
— Is it me, or did Charlie grow a foot and age three years in between seasons?
I still have a sneaking suspicion that she or Judith Grimes from The Walking Dead will form the basis of the next The Walking Dead spin-off, expected to center on two young women. It obviously cannot be both, however, because they exist on two different timelines, about 7 years apart.
— Major Dodson’s Dylan it turns out is much less annoying than Henry, the character played by Dodson’s older brothers.
