‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘Cindy Hawkins’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 703 of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’.
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Often times in storytelling, confronting the past and the trauma that haunts us… is explored in a supremely inspirational manner. Wherein the character suffering from those very things, comes to understand that keeping such darkness around… damages their life and their soul and the only way to be free and to move forward in life, is to confront it head on and beat it in a manner that is so bold and so dynamic… that the audience either puts down their book or walks away from a television or silver screen, feeling as though they can take on the world. But while that particular formula definitely sends our spirits soaring and reminds us to stand tall in the face of this challenge, this push to keep such matters in a constantly positive light… does the audience a great disservice.
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For in reality, confronting the past and dealing with the various traumas tough moments send our way… is not an easy task in the slightest. In fact, it is ridiculously difficult and cumbersome and filled with setbacks and tough days that make it seem as though our demons are going to win and sometimes, they do. Plus, what’s worse, is that usually the only way we come to discover that we have issues we need to address, is by making some kind of a grave mistake. One that hurts people we care about… which puts us in an even tougher place, where we feel shame and remorse over letting something we should have dealt with ages ago… take control. If anything, that uglier side to confronting out past is of note today, simply because it served as the focal exploration of last night’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead.

But it sure didn’t seem as though that was going to be the case early on. For the opening of ‘Cindy Hawkins’ fooled us into thinking that this story was going to be about the horrors of surviving a nuclear war. A feat that it was seemingly going to accomplish, by having us spend a little time underground with John Dorie Sr. and his daughter-in-law, June. Since they were working hard to keep to a routine inside the bunker they commandeered from Teddy and well… that routine was a touch unnerving. Because it quickly made it clear that keeping one’s mind busy is imperative to properly surviving a mushroom cloud. So that one doesn’t let the reality sink in that one is trapped in a metal tube below the ground. Which John and June appeared to be coping with, despite the sense of doom that sounds above provided them with.

But one fateful night changed the narrative of this story post-haste. For a little post-explosion quake revealed that this bunker had a spare room within its framework, which shocked June and John to no end. Because it turns out, that this newly discovered room wasn’t some kind of den or a place that offered opportunities to break up the monotony of being underground. No instead, this was Teddy’s killing floor. Where he took every last one of his victims and embalmed them and well, the discovery of this room awakened something within John. Because he and his fellow officers didn’t have a clue this place existed and that let his mind wander and allowed for the past to sneak into the present. Because in many ways, this room represented every failure that John endured and well… being in this space gave him quite the wild idea.

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In that, perhaps he could finally do right by the one victim whose body was never recovered, a woman named Cindy Hawkins, whose mother he promised to bring to rest, and it didn’t take long for this seemingly impossible task to infect his mind. Because just like that, he was pouring over Teddy’s maps and notes and trinkets, hoping desperately to find a clue that would lead him to Cindy’s corpse and to complicate matters further… his obsession with yesterday revealed a powerful secret. As it turns out… John has had a drinking problem for some time and with their liquor being destroyed by the quiver that revealed this room, he was about to exhibit withdrawal symptoms and that is really where the exploration on the ugliness that can come about from confronting out past, got underway.  
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Because those early days of doing so, where we are determined and of the belief this will be an easy fight, plunges us into a world of obsession. Where we think that somehow hard focus on just beating this will allow for us to conquer it. When instead, all this does is prompt us to neglect our needs and the needs of others and this is where mistakes will be made, and dumb things are said and that’s precisely where John was at in this segment of the story. Since John didn’t listen a word June said about what he needed to do in the moment. He simply focused on Cindy and solving the case and the withdrawal took his obsession to new heights, since it motivated him to even hear things and see Cindy and well… for a time it seemed as though John was going to be lost to a worst-case scenario/grand fear we all share in during this phase. Wherein it appeared he might collapse from the power of the past and allow for it to consume him. 

In fact, he was so lost within his failures and the belief that the only way he could heal, was by solving a case that no longer mattered as much as it once did… that he abandoned June in a time of need and went off to where he thought Cindy’s body was waiting to provide him with peace. But seeing more of those mysterious men that Strand’s team encountered in the premiere, try to break in and harm June… finally allowed for him to come to a realization that we all eventually reach in this process. In that, our past is never resolved quickly, and it takes years of self-care and work to truly find that peace. But in the meantime, being the best person, we can be and working to help others can help keep us on the right path to heal, and that epiphany allowed for John to save June, and even discover that Cindy was buried in the bunker all along… right before the whole damn thing caved in on them. 

But thankfully, a Mister Victor Strand sent his lackeys to save them before things got rough and now, they will get a chance to heal both physically and emotionally within Strand’s compound. Which is imperative since we now know John has a lot of wounds to patch up and June does as well for that matter. Since she did a few unsavory things herself to avoid healing. But while we wait to see what a little quiet time and inflection and safety will do for this duo; we can celebrate one amazing tale. One that once again used the power of a double apocalypse to explore some of the more fragile aspects of the human condition and deeply scare us along the way. Since John’s psychosis and the world surrounding that bunker, were genuinely frightening. But what matters most is that story really does offer up quite the positive lesson in the end. Since it reminds us to always have a solid support network around when the going gets tough. So that we stay grounded and are constantly reminded… of what matters most in this life. Until next time.  

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