AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead
7×15: “Amina”
Directed by Michael E. Satrazemis
Written by Ian Goldberg & Andre Chambliss

* For a recap & review of 7×14, click here.
* For a recap & review of the Season 7 finale, click here.
After shit officially hit the fan at the Tower, Dwight and the others are rushing Alicia to help as they battle radiated walkers. They manage to make it to the shoreline where they’re prepping the raft to get out of there. Walkers from the crater will burn in the fire and all that nastiness will make it into the air, making the near vicinity a toxic wasteland. Strand didn’t want to leave the Tower so he’s back there somewhere. Alicia sees the girl who saved her once at the bunker, believing she heard the message from the Tower, but is the girl real or a vision? Either way, Alicia’s not leaving just yet, heading back towards the Tower and all its danger.

Alicia continues to see the girl just on the horizon but never quite makes it to her, stumbling deeper into the wasteland. She actually comes to a walker instead of the girl, though she quickly kills it. She takes off the covering on her arm and it’s like she’s become a zombie. She sees herself in a puddle looking like one. Then she comes to later in the back of the SWAT truck with the girl, who’s apparently real. The girl did hear the message over the radio. She’s been out there looking for a friend, someone who can help them find Padre. Alicia comes across a tape marked ‘Amina’ and she thinks of her mother for a moment, but puts the tape away immediately in her bag. She and the girl talk more. The girl reveals a bite on her arm and she clearly isn’t zombified. She says her friend saved her. VERY INTRIGUING!
When Alicia tries to kill a zombie she nearly passes out, necessitating help from her smaller companion. She mentions having zombie dreams and the girl once had them before she was saved. The girl insists: “You‘re not going to end up like one of them.” At least somebody’s staying positive between them. Soon, the pair get back to the Tower where the fire’s raging. Alicia is ready to turn back but the girl refuses to leave. So they keep going. But Alicia is in a bad way, she can’t even stand up. The little girl calls for help using the walkie.
And when Alicia wakes up she’s being carried again by her friends, taking her back to the raft. The girl is nowhere to be found. Everyone says there was no girl, it was Alicia who called them over the radio. And so the girl probably wasn’t real after all. Likely all just wishful thinking reaching out of the depths of Alicia’s ill mind. She can’t admit it, she wants to go back to the Tower, insisting the girl was real. Alicia is sure the girl’s real and that the girl can help her survive, as well as lead them to Padre. Daniel agrees to help, so Luciana does, too. The rest of the gang are game, as well.

Alicia hears the girl on the radio, though only while her friends are off clearing the way forward. She also takes the single bullet from her necklace and loads it into her gun. Then they’re all ready to go into the tunnel, none of them willing to stay behind and let Alicia go alone. Yet Alicia wants them to go back to the raft, not wanting anybody to sacrifice anything more for her. She won’t put any of them in further danger. Not a great idea, though a noble one, no doubt. And so down Alicia goes, eventually making it back into the Tower.
In the Tower, Alicia continues to have horrible visions while searching for the girl, who radios supposedly from the roof. She keeps pushing until she’s up at the roof with the girl. She tells the girl: “I don‘t want to die.” She also sees the transmitter’s broken. Then the girl says her friend is in the Tower; it’s Victor Strand. Oh, mercy. The girl isn’t real, she’s just a voice from inside Alicia somewhere. She keeps telling Alicia to find Strand, then Alicia falls unconscious once again.
The little bird from earlier keeps showing up, as if leading Alicia where she needs to go. She walks through the burning, smoky rubble of the Tower until she finds Strand laying drunk on his bed. “So many people had to live so I could live,” Alicia says. Alicia wanted to make Padre, or the Tower, or anywhere, “a place that could last” like her mother wanted to do. Now she’s ready to put that bullet in her brain and end it all. Strand tries to tell her not to, but she has her mind made up. Alicia thinks of all those who’ve died, all those who continue living, and she tells the bird to fly away, to be free like she can’t be anymore. But all Alicia can do is think of Madison because of that bird. She smashes a window to let the bird fly free. She wants to be free like that, too; to keep living.

The little girl inside Alicia says that what she’s searching for is on that tape. She also says the way to keep living is to make sure the good parts of her live on, and a piece of that comes from saving Strand. Down at the beach, everyone’s prepared to shove off and they can only wait so long for Alicia before they’re ready to go. Then Luciana hears Alicia call over the radio asking for help.
Alicia passes out again and comes to on the beach. She gets a chance to talk with Morgan over the radio. He tells her he’s heard chatter on the radio about Padre; it may be a real place for them to go. She wants him to know that things won’t be like this forever. She’s prepared to die but she’s sure the future will be better, somehow, some way.

Strand’s going to go in a raft with Alicia but she won’t go. She’s worried about turning, unsure of how long she has left to live. She wants Strand to make sure their experiences are worth something in the end. Alicia needs to go to the Tower, in case people heard her message and head there. WAY TOO MUCH BACK AND FORTH IN THIS EPISODE! Good lord. First, Alicia’s going back, then her friends help, then she refuses their help, and it’s just… too much. Not emotionally, just bad writing. Nevertheless, here we are, and Alicia now tells Strand: “I did it because I love you, too.”
Is this really going to be the end for Alicia? Will she survive to do more good? Or are we seeing the last hurrah of Alicia Clark? For now, she passes out on the beach. She wakes to a little bird by her side again. She feels a lot better suddenly. She still has her inner child self as companion, too. And she uses that one bullet, a kind of declaration of hope.