The second half of Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead is determinedly slogging its way to a tumultuous finale — and one that just might take everyone down with it if Teddy (John Glover) has his way.
Already, there have been plenty of clues that Teddy is some sort of crazy cult leader capable of just about anything. However, Episode 14 gave viewers a definite answer to some of those theories that have been circulating.
So, let’s find out if Teddy is going to unleash a nuclear bomb or if Madison (Kim Dickens) will make a miraculous reappearance any time soon.
Teddy is determined that Alicia will see things his way
Episode 14 of Fear the Walking Dead opens with a brief backstory into how Teddy escaped death row.
Then, viewers get to see Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) being held captive and having to listen to Teddy’s bullsh*t on repeat. She doesn’t buy it for a single moment and Teddy finally decides that a road trip is what is needed.
On the way, though, Dakota (Zoe Colletti) turns up at the Holding as a “new recruit,” but, really, she thinks she is trying to fix things and prove her worth.
So, of course, Alicia gets lumped with another young girl who is more than a little bit messed up.
Dakota has mommy issues, just like Teddy, so she gets to come along too while Teddy goes to dig up his old dead mother.
Yes, you read that right. He digs up that corpse and drags her along to wherever the Holding’s new community is going to be based.
Now, it seems like Alicia could have offed Teddy at just about any point so far. In fact, Dakota even suggests it on the sly when they are first alone.
However, Alicia is determined to find out exactly what Teddy is up to, which means there is a lot of info dump in this episode that comes out as backstory monologue from Teddy.
Cole turns up to remind Alicia of her mom
Teddy is trying pretty hard to remind Alicia of her mother and all that she did before dying. Alicia is not budging on her stance, though. And, with convenient timing that is mostly orchestrated by Teddy taking her into territory that might contain stragglers from Dell Stadium where Alicia’s mother, Madison, died, he comes up with the goods.
As viewers discover later in the episode, Teddy had been hoping that he could prove that everyone Madison saved when she died had also died. However, what actually happens is that Cole (Sebastian Sozzi) turns up after they have a car mishap.
Funny how Cole should just be in the vicinity when they run over a plank of wood loaded up with nails…
Of course, he — and some of the other survivors from Dell Stadium — orchestrated this in order to steal all their stuff, and this actually proves Teddy’s point to Alicia more than them being dead. After all, he wants Alicia to acknowledge that what her mother did was fruitless.
Still, Alicia won’t be swayed and eventually gets the upper hand, killing Cole in the process. Because let’s face it, Madison died trying to save this a*shole and all he did was turn into scum. I one hundred percent don’t blame Alicia for that.
So, for those hoping Madison would return in this episode, your hopes have been thwarted yet again because while Cole was a link between Alicia and Madison, he didn’t really mention anything that might suggest Madison was still alive.
Teddy thinks it’s now time to tell Alicia all about his evil plan and spills the beans as only an evil mastermind can. So, now viewers have absolute proof that he’s going to nuke everything in order to start with a clean slate — to break the cycle, so to speak.
Did I mention earlier that he’s crazy?
Finally, Alicia gets a chance to pull a gun on Teddy.
Teddy has mommy issues — but so does Dakota
Except Dakota has managed to get brainwashed by the King of the Crazies in a ridiculously short amount of time.
And, let’s face it, Dakota has been raised by the sort of mother that makes her the perfect candidate for brainwashing. This means that Alicia has no choice but to get taken captive again.
This confession confirms the theory many fans had about the keys that Riley (Nick Stahl) was so desperate to get from Morgan (Lennie James) were for the submarine seen all the way back in Episode 1 of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6. As for whether or not it proves Forbes’ theory that Fear the Walking Dead is just a prequel to The 100 remains to be seen, though.
One saving grace is that Alicia does manage to contact Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and blurt out all of Teddy’s plans to him right before she gets the radio confiscated.
I feel like evil masterminds should know by now not to blurt out every last detail of their plan. But, here we are, yet again…
The episode ends with Teddy locking Alicia in a cell beneath a hotel that has a conveniently placed bunker that will stand up to a nuclear attack.
And all that mumbo-jumbo talk about getting Alicia to join him in his crazy beliefs? He never wanted that at all.
Instead, he wanted someone who would try to continue to make the world a better place after he nukes it all. Also, that wasn’t his mother, just some rando he hoped would get Alicia to take a long hard look at herself.
Unfortunately, there is a bit of a wait to find out what happens next. As Comic Book points out, Fear the Walking Dead will now go on a two-week hiatus before it returns again on June 6.
Fear the Walking Dead goes on hiatus and will return on June 6 at 9/8c on AMC.