Fear the Walking Dead: Checking into Hotel Death

First Aired August 28th, 2016.

Nick (played by Frank Dillane) watches as a young man in his new community voluntarily walks into a large field of walkers to be eaten. He comforts the man’s daughter as the community watches on, chanting in Spanish.

Luciana (played by Danay Garcia) forces Nick to put on walker blood and join her on a scavenging trip. She explains that those who are dying offer themselves as sacrifices to the walkers, who they believe protect them. The leader Alejandro (played by Paul Calderon) came up with the idea and Luciana reveals everyone follows him because he was bitten but did not turn. Luciana leads him to a warehouse run by a gang and barters OxyContin for entry so they can shop for supplies.

Meanwhile, Madison (played by Kim Dickens) and the others drive around searching for Nick but Alicia (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey) tells Madison it’s just them now and convinces everyone to go back to the boat. However, when they get to the ocean, the boat is gone, and a note written in the sand sends the group north where they find an abandoned hotel. The remnants of a wedding prompt Ofelia (played by Mercedes Mason) to remember a brief engagement she once had and she goes with Alicia to search for supplies.

These people may regard the human sacrifice as an honor to feed their “loved ones” but that guy did not look happy about it. Alejandro didn’t have to resort to feeding Luciana and the others Kool-Aid. He sucked them into his cult with a fake story about surviving being bitten. Nick got what he wanted. He found people who really love the dead. Luciana’s claim that the dead protect them is partially true: nothing keeps out unwanted visitors like a horde of walkers. It was surprising how well Alicia handled the loss of Nick but given that when he was on drugs he often disappeared she must be used to dealing with that. Although, why they chose the huge and scary abandoned hotel for their shelter is beyond me. Then they make the most common mistake of splitting up, basically doing everything possible to invite trouble.

Madison and Strand (played by Colman Domingo) hit the bar while Alicia and Ofelia search rooms. They find a man who killed himself and Ofelia tells Alicia that they won’t make it and wallows in the sadness of losing her family, despite Alicia’s attempts to console her. Madison gets drunk and grieves that she will never see Nick again and tells Strand how her husband died after falling asleep at the wheel. She begins smashing glasses in anger while Strand plays the piano, unaware the sounds are drawing the attention of nearby walkers. Alicia sees walkers falling from balconies drawn by the music and runs to warn the others. But a stairwell full of walkers stops her. While leaving the warehouse, Nick is caught shoplifting chocolate for the little girl. The gang threatens to cut off his hand until Nick has Luciana translate that they will stop supplying them with OxyContin, and Nick and Lucina end up leaving with more water. However, Luciana is furious that Nick almost got them killed and worries the gang may follow them to learn the location of their community.

Madison has always been a strong character and seeing her so emotionally vulnerable brought out a new side of her. It was also good seeing more emotional development for Ofelia, who generally is in the background without much importance to the stories in an episode. The walkers hurling themselves over balconies was a stunning visual. I love when Walking Dead finds inventive ways to incorporate the walkers. Shoplifting is a risky habit already, but trying to rip off trigger-happy gang members makes it that much more dangerous. Nick was riding high after intimidating them into getting supplies, but those guys are not the type to take that kind of disrespect lying down. As Luciana predicted, they will come looking for revenge, which is bad news for the residents of crazy town—but a welcome conflict for viewers to watch unfold.

Alejandro threatens to feed Nick to the walkers if he ever puts the community in danger again and reveals he has been giving people placebos to counter the dwindling supply of medicine. Madison and Strand fight off a large group of walkers intertwined with a scene of Alejandro giving a sermon about death to his community, and Madison and Strand become trapped behind the hotel bar. Alejandro withholds medication from these people and feeds them to walkers, not exactly a standup guy. He does know how to get a crowd worked up, but you could see he’s hooked on the power. Things look grim for Madison and Strand right now but the one bright spot is they can at least get drunk.

Quotes/Thoughts

“I hate hotels, they creep me out.” “The dead walk the earth and it’s hotels that creep you out?”

Ofelia may have hurt herself, but honestly, with all the other more compelling characters would anyone miss her all that much?

“From death, we come…and to death we deliver ourselves.”

The best time to start a cult is after the world ends.

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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