Fear the Walking Dead – Season 2, Episode 6: “Sicut Cervus”
Grade: B+
The sixth episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “Sicut Cervus,” took the characters from the yacht on the open ocean to their destination of Mexico, but life off the Abigail isn’t any better for our characters struggling to survive—nor is the show any better off the water than it was on. That’s not to say that the episode wasn’t great and didn’t work well for the story the show is telling, just that it’s still not as great as its original sister show, The Walking Dead.
“Sicut Cervus” starts off with a scene of a church-full of people in a Mexican town, taking communion during the apocalypse, planning to leave. Thomas Abigail rushes to them, begging them to stay, but all of them begin to bleed from their eyes and noses, poisoned to prevent them to leave. The rest of the episode sees our characters make it to Mexico after a struggle to get through across the border, losing Luis in the fight. After an encounter with a church-full of Walkers, they make it to the estate to find Thomas Abigail bitten, dying from infection, and the caretaker Celia, Luis’s mother, in either denial or delusion that Walkers are not truly dead, and by killing them, that will kill kill them. Nick starts to bond with Celia, beginning to believe what she does, too. When Chris, thinking Madison didn’t believe him about shooting Reed, does nothing to help her when attacked by Walkers, Alicia witnesses it and confronts him. After Chris threatens her, Alicia and Madison stick together while Travis defends his son. Later, as Strand shoots Thomas in order to save him from life as a Walker after promising a double suicide—via poisoned communion wafers, revealing Celia’s poisoning of the church—Chris is found standing in Alicia and Madison’s bedroom with a knife after wanting to apologize, startling them and causing him to run from the estate. Meanwhile, Daniel’s mental state is getting worse as he hears voices and dazes out, worrying Ofelia.
Overall, a good episode, even with its few issues. The opening scene of church-goers dying horrific deaths really started off the episode perfectly, adding an extra bit of horror and mystery. The episode was entertaining and brought a lot of interesting story arcs to work with for future episodes. The mid-season finale
HIGHLIGHTS
The church scene
opening the episode really worked well. The scene was horrifying, something completely different that surprised me—an entire church of people starting to bleed from their eyes as Thomas Abigail came to convince them to stay and then all die was terrifying and a great opener for the episode. To later learn that it had been Celia who had poisoned them via the communion bread—even better.
Moving off the yacht
for a while was a great idea. Though I liked the idea of being on a boat during this season, it started to not work very well. Without the threat of Walkers, their only choice for tension—other than the annoying family drama—they had to resort to an outside threat of people taking their boat. After that happened, what else could go wrong on the boat to bring the show moving? Getting to Mexico, even if it’s just a for a while (I suspect it might, since Celia seems crazy and they will probably want to leave now that Thomas is dead and Strand shot him) to give the show something to do without the yacht for a while. I do hope we get back to the yacht, however, eventually. Thought I’m not sure what they’ll do once on it.
Strand losing Thomas
was sad. The moment I saw Strand see Thomas’s truck at the church, calling out his name in a panic, I knew my previous thought of Strand not actually being in love with him was false. There’s no way. It wasn’t just one sided, he wasn’t just using Thomas, it was real. Which made him finding Thomas at home, bitten, and then having to shoot him after he died (after lying about both taking their own lives from the same poisoned communion bread as Celia gave the church) even more sad.
Celia
is clearly a little insane. She’s like some sort of cult leader, believing that the Walkers aren’t dead, just different or sick. She seems to be getting a hold on Nick to believe the same and it’s obvious that something not right with how she’s handling things. The woman playing her, though, is fantastic. I love Celia as a character and I know that somethings going to go down in the mid-season finale.
Daniel is actually going crazy.
He’s hearing voices, staring off in a daze, having flashbacks of when he was a kid. Something is going on with him and I fear that it’s not going to be good for the rest of the characters if he starts having some PTSD flashbacks of his past, hurting someone else. But I’m interested in seeing where it goes, especially in contrast to Chris’s pseudo-insanity, mostly just being dramatic.
LOWLIGHTS
Chris’s storyline
is getting a little out of hand. I’m not such a fan of Chris turning into…what, a murderer? I get what’s happening and what they’re doing, and I would like to see it go somewhere good, but the whole thing seems a little ridiculous. If they handle it better in the future, I might warm up to the idea, but right now it’s just not working for me. Especially the scene where he went into the room with a sleeping Alicia and Madison, picked up the knife (why? why? WHY?) and when they woke up, took off, making it seem like he was going to murder them in their sleep (to them). I just rolled my eyes. If we’re going to make him go insane and start slashing people, let’s do it right and do it strong. Or have him move on from this already. I’m just not into it.
Mauve Reviews 