AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead
6×07: “Damage from the Inside”
Directed by Tawnia McKiernan
Written by Jacob Pinion

* For a recap & review of 6×06, click here.
* For a recap & review of 6×08, click here.
Strand is with a group of rangers on the road. They’re transporting Dakota, or, as she sees it, keeping a close eye on her. She’s suggesting to Victor that they run off somewhere; he’s being smart, biding his time for the right moment and not post-tragedy when everybody’s on edge. Smart—both of them, really. When they get to a roadblock they find one of their rangers’ horse and lots of bloody stuff. Victor and Samuels head up the road a bit to scout things, suspecting someone’s up to tricks. Then they see their convoy’s horses running up behind them with none of the rangers to be found. They rush back to find the vehicle gone along with Dakota, too.
Huge uh oh! Who’s fucking with them? The END IS THE BEGINNING folk?

Elsewhere, Alicia and Charlie are together, the former ignoring Strand’s calls over the walkie. Victor keeps calling and calling, but Alicia’s been out at that lonely place for a month and a half, unwilling to do anything for him when he’s sent them to that place. Finally she responds, asking what he needs. Strand wants to see her for a chat, so Alicia and Charlie meet him and Samuels. He explains the attack on their convoy, and tells them about Tank Town’s demise. They’ve found the SUV they believe Dakota drove out of the attack before going further on foot. Victor wants Alicia to help because Dakota trusts her. He tries to convince Alicia he’s simply been towing the line with Ginny to get them in a place where they can “do the damage” required to liberate themselves.
And so, off go Charlie and Alicia on their search. The younger of the two isn’t sure why Alicia’s bothering to help Victor after all. Alicia says they need to find help other than Strand; she’s thinking of talking to the people who attacked Tank Town. Is that really smart? Nah. She has no clue what those people are really doing, it could just be total nihilism. Alicia almost gets chomped by a zombie. They have a look at the walker corpse after and see it’s been mutilated and… just, yikes! They also see there’s a big hunting lodge nearby. Alicia goes on ahead by herself as Charlie stays on watch.

Inside, “Tonight You Belong to Me” by Nancy Sinatra’s playing—still creepy, even if it’s not the Patience and Prudence version used several times throughout American Horror Story. Alicia soon hears the familiar growls of a zombie. She comes upon a man with a zombie strapped to a table. The man looks to be creating strange animal-zombie hybrids, judging by the one we saw outside earlier. Alicia’s surprised from behind by the man stabbing a needle into her. When she wakes, she’s tied to the table. She manages to get free, grabbing hold of a sharp antler. Someone’s at the door and we then see it’s Dakota. The young girl is safe. The man helped her, and he only drugged Alicia because he thought she might be one of the people who attacked the convoy. The guy—Ed (Raphael Sbarge)—further explains he only does weird things to the zombies to scare people away from the property. Actually an ingenious idea.

Funny enough, Ed seems like a nice guy. He talks about his family while he and Dakota play chess together. Alicia’s not ready to trust the guy quite yet, sitting off to the side and listening. Dakota talks about Virginia killing their parents; poor little lady’s so traumatised by the post-zombie apocalypse life she doesn’t even flinch talking about her dead parents. Regardless of how cosy things feel, Alicia can’t settle in. She heads off for a blanket when she stumbles onto Charlie, who sneaked herself in. Charlie says that Ed boarded the place up after Alicia was knocked out. Hmm. Is this a safe place? Alicia’s snooping around where she shouldn’t and Ed finds her. She confronts him about why the place is locked tight. And she reveals Dakota is Ginny’s sister, telling Ed he has to let her leave or else Virginia will come looking. This convinces him to let them go in the morning. Alicia’s sure that the walker Ed was working on is a ranger, and believes he might’ve attacked the convoy in the first place. Dakota will leave, but she won’t go back to her sister.
Alicia calls Virginia to make a deal. She’ll return Dakota, so long as she and Charlie are allowed to leave, to go on their own without being hunted down like all the rest. Ginny seemingly makes the deal; will she actually stick to that, though? Not so sure. She loves having people under her thumb. Letting go of control, in any shape or form, is not her strong suit. Before Alicia and Charlie and Dakota can do anything, they’ve got to survive the night at the lodge. In the middle of the night, Ed turns up the speakers outside with classical music playing. He wants to lure back all his “creations.” He’s obsessed with preserving things “as they were,” and he doesn’t want to lose what he has, not again. He tells Dakota and Alicia about rangers finding the lodge—one day, he returned to find his family murdered by Ginny and her people. Ed started making his scary monsters after his family died, to protect the lodge and keep bad people out. Might not have been great for his mental health.

Ed orders the girls upstairs. While he’s asleep by way of an injection from Charlie, she breaks in to get her friends. The music eventually stops playing and the terrifying zombies outside start to leave. But Ed’s up and about, the injection not going into one of his veins. He’s a little wobbly, that doesn’t mean much when he has a gun. He’s now convinced that Alicia is in league with Ginny because of the radio and everything else. She wrestles with him and with Charlie they get the gun out of his hands. Ed falls on one of the many antlers around his place, impaling himself in the process. And all this is enough noise to draw the walkers back around the house. Soon, Ed’s left to be embraced by his creations, as the girls make a run for it. One of the MOST TERRIFYING sequences in The Walking Dead universe! So many wild looking zombie-animal hybrids.
At a certain point, the zombies disperse.
Because Morgan has come! He and Alicia are, once more, reunited.

The music drew him there. The next morning, they bury Ed and prepare to get moving on down the road. Morgan’s continuing to build his hopeful new community, where he’ll take the three girls now. Is Alicia going to hand Dakota over to Ginny like she planned? She has a talk with Morgan and he suggests they have no real choice but to use Dakota as a bargaining chip. And then Alicia realises Morgan’s the one who attacked the convoy. Yes, this is a much more drastic, different version of Morgan than ever before. He’s moved past ‘all life is precious’ to realising only certain lives can be saved. He isn’t the one who destroyed Tank Town, though. Those END IS THE BEGINNING lads are still about someplace.
Alicia doesn’t want to give Dakota over to Ginny. She and Morgan are at complete odds. She decides they’re not going with Morgan after all: “I can‘t do your way.” He doesn’t want them to go, he doesn’t see the purpose in a new safe place if it isn’t for all of them; and Dakota’s coming with them. A while later and they come upon Strand, explaining what they’re all going to do next. Victor winds up pulling his gun when Alicia makes clear they’re not going back to Ginny, and Morgan’s ready to dance if that’s what Strand wants. But he backs down. Back in Lawton, Strand tells Ginny the truth and he pledges allegiance to her. Reality, or fabrication? We’ll have to wait and see how things shake out. At the moment, Ginny’s preparing to go to war, especially now knowing Morgan is alive. She shows Victor that Grace is alive, pregnant, and held captive under Ginny’s watch. SHEEEEEEEEIT!
Yet another solid chapter in Season 6. Love this show, and love the new plots/characters that have been opening up over the course of the season’s first half. It’ll be compelling to watch how things continue, and what bonds are going to fully break down/hold together. The Grace reveal is certainly something, and I’m excited to watch Morgan v. Ginny unravel.