‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘Damage from the Inside’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season six midseason finale of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’.
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One particular notion that many people believe is outright critical to our success is life, is planning. Because sometimes finding our way forward is downright impossible. Simply because, in that moment, we haven’t a clue how to get where we want and need to go in both the literal and figurative sense. But putting together a plan, gives us focus and direction and it allows for us to figure out a way to achieve our goals in life and that’s why people stand by plans time and time again. For when they are well-written and carefully thought out and executed to a tee, we tend to get exactly what we want out of life.
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But while it is indeed inspiring to hear about how plans are indeed handy and fulfilling, what we don’t talk about enough when it comes to them… is how we need to be ready to adapt them on a moment’s notice. Because the chaos that is life, finds ways to seep into our plans and complicate them and if we don’t change them to handle the moment the hand, they can grow stagnant or blow up in our faces. If anything, this is relevant to today’s discussion, simply because the importance of the plan and our need to adapt and change them when the situation calls for it; served as the primary focal point of the season six midseason finale of Fear the Walking Dead and injecting this concept into ‘Damage from the Inside’ made for dynamic and fascinating episode for certain.

One that also took the time to explore the fallout of Victor Strand’s decision to sever all ties with Alicia. Because they spoke for the first time in weeks in this tale, and only because Strand was in need of her help. For someone attacked a convoy that was he was in charge of, one that was carrying dear Dakota to safety until the situation was resolved with the mysterious people that blew up Tank Town. And in the wake of that attack, Dakota went missing and that’s when Victor called his old friend in to try and help him, find her and well… his plea didn’t exactly engender enthusiasm from Alicia. For she was deeply hurt by his decision to just throw her into the wilderness, despite his claims that such an act was part of his master plan to bring down Virginia’s communities from the inside. And speaking of that plan… he truly believed that keeping Dakota safe and maintaining Ginny’s trust in him was paramount to executing it. Hence why he needed Alicia’s help, so the boss would be none the wiser to what happened here. 

Which was a request that Alicia went along with, but not for friendly and helpful reasons. No instead, she helped out in order to execute her own plan for safety and security. For she knew full well that she could use Dakota as leverage to escape her current situation, and finding out who was holding her captive could prove to be useful to Alicia, if in fact they were strong enough to bring Ginny down. But instead, her search for Dakota is what ended up exploring quite the lesson in how the best laid plans sometimes go sideways and that we need to adapt and change them as necessary, and all it took to get to that particular epiphany, was a dose of pure madness. For eventually she and Charlie were able to figure out that Dakota was being held in a nearby vacation spot, one that was being maintained by a broken man named Ed. 

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As it turns out, Ed lost his family ages ago due to his twisted creations, since he ‘modified’ the living dead in a frightening manner to keep strangers out, And losing his wife and daughter to a failed modification, damaged his psyche badly enough that he vowed to keep anyone else in his custody safe at any cost, and if that meant he had to exert physical and psychological harm to make that happen; so be it. Which of course, was bad news for Alicia and Charlie and Dakota, since he was quick to lock them within the confines of this out of the way getaway and imply that harm would come to them if they didn't comply, and the sheer fury that such an act drew from his ‘guests’, eventually led to disaster. For when the opportunity arose for Alicia to fight back to try and secure freedom for herself and her friends, she took it, and Ed was mortally wounded in the scuffle and filled with regret for not having done something differently with his path and his plan.
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A regret that he was quick to express to Alicia, and his words and Strand’s desire to stick to his plan, no matter how much it hurt others, combined with Morgan’s unexpected arrival and expressed desire to use Dakota as a pawn instead of giving her a chance to escape the madness of her sister… finally allowed for Alicia to reach her epiphany. For all of these plans were unsustainable in every sense of the word and would cause more bloodshed down the line, and that required a serious course correction in regard to these plans. The kind that surprisingly, Morgan agreed to when he finally realized that Alicia was right and that there had to be a better way for everyone to get what they want out of this unfortunate conflict. But while it was nice to see these two old friends get back on the same page once again, Victor’s choice in this matter, hammered home the trouble of sticking with the plan. 

Because that’s precisely what Victor did when presented with an opportunity to adapt and change and well… that unfortunate choice could potentially make him a pariah and an outcast when it comes to the people, he’s straight up bled with over the years. And to make matters worse, Ginny truly seems to believe that he is on her side, and his admission to her that Morgan Jones has taken her sister to a secure location… prompted Ginny to break out her ‘secret weapon’ and reveal to Strand that Grace has been quietly locked away for just such a moment and will be used as leverage in dealing with dear Morgan and well, this reveal puts Strand in quite the pickle. Because eventually, he will genuinely have to pick and a side and fight for it and stick with it, since hanging out within the grey area simply isn’t going to work for him anymore and it should be interesting to see what Strand decides to do, since it would seem that circumstances are quickly unraveling his carefully laid out plan.

In the end however, this really was quite the fascinating and engrossing midseason finale. For it really did offer up just about everything we love about this series. After all, it was creepy and unsettling thanks to Ed’s house of deformed zombie horrors, and it also featured some intriguing and complex interpersonal conflicts, and it did a fine job of setting the stage for a grand showdown between Ginny and Morgan. Because now the both of them have human bargaining chips and it should be equally as interesting to see how their conflict comes to a resolution now that Morgan is starting to remember that there is a better way, and also whether or not their final battle will happen before the season six finale. Because there is still a greater threat working behind the scenes out there and well… what matters most, is that this midseason finale left us hooked and eager for more, because that’s what a good midseason finale does, and it is safe to say that all of us will be counting down the days until the midseason premiere, so we can see how all of these juicy plot lines are going to be resolved. Until next time.

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