‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 6 recap: Episode 2, ‘Welcome to the Club’

In Fear The Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 2, we catch up with Victor and Alicia–and are treated to one heck of a sweet surprise.

Fear The Walking Dead Season 6 is surprisingly off to a wild and exciting start just two episodes into the sixth season. I wasn’t expecting it to capture my attention as quickly as it has, but if they’re headed in the direction I think they are–this is going to be one hell of a season.

Sticking to the character anthology format for this season, Fear The Walking Dead shifts the focus to Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) this week. Their circumstances are less than ideal as they’re literally cleaning crap out of the latrine when we catch up with them. It’s jarring to see such strong characters fall under the control of Virginia (Colby Minifie), but their desire to fight hasn’t quite gone away.

They find themselves in the middle of a scuffle but Virginia’s teenage sister Dakota (Zoe Colletti) steps in to put an end to things. Side note: Colletti actually looks like she could be Minifie’s sister (or even daughter)–the similarities are quite uncanny if you’re asking me.

Fear The Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 2 recap: Wait, is that…

Victor Strand is one of my favorite characters in this series, and I’m already pleased with where they’re taking his character this season. Despite Dakota trying to vouch for Victor and Alicia, they’re both sent to Virginia’s office only to find an unexpected surprise when they got there.

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A surprise in the form of Daniel Salazar (Ruben Blades), that is! He’s busy cutting away Virginia’s hair and is completely unaware of who Victor and Alicia are.

In fact, he seems to have some sort of memory block situation going on, although I refuse to believe that it’s actually true. This is Daniel we’re talking about, he’s a clever man and there is something certainly at play here.

His facade (yes, I’m calling it that) continues as Virginia dishes out Victor and Alicia’s punishment–sending them to the sugar processing plant filled with walkers. On their way out, Victor looked at Daniel with utter disgust, taunting him for forgetting who he is.

Alright, Victor, let’s calm down.

Fear The Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 2 recap: Victor takes control

There is definitely something in the air this season with characters wanting to break out of the shell of their former selves. Last week, we saw Morgan shed his reluctant, scared nature for a more badass, warrior one, and this week, it looks Victor is trying to do the same. When they arrive at the plant, he initiates a plan to take over it, even though the odds are clearly stacked against them.

Amidst their planning, they learn that Dakota snuck over there with them, and is eager to help out. She doesn’t care about her sister and is more inclined to help Victor and Alicia instead after watching their videos. She reveals that she knows about Victor’s deal with Virginia (involving a weapon within the plant), which Alicia was unaware of, and not too happy to learn about at first. In exchange for getting to stay with Alicia, Virginia was given the SWAT van. He didn’t really want to leave Alicia’s side because she allowed him to remember who he is.

Anyone’s heart would melt at that notion, so the plan to get the walkers and find the weapon commences. Once they found the weapon, they’d be able to take Virginia down with it, instead of handing it over to her.

Fear The Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 2 recap: The plan goes out sideways

As plans often do, this plan went completely off the rails. First off, their plan to just let the walkers out in a stampede was not exactly the best way to handle things. They just flooded the gates, and most people were ambushed and unable to stop the walkers. Not exactly a sound plan, if you’re asking me.

Victor tries to lure the herd by hooking the horn, but it’s utterly useless and the herd doesn’t really care. They can smell fresh meat, and that’s where they’re headed, according to Sanjay (a prisoner of Virginia’s). Well, since they love fresh meat, Victor decides to take it upon himself to offer just that–by literally feeding Sanjay to the walkers and getting the herd away from the plant.

Yikes, Victor. I didn’t see that coming, but as I said, they’re really taking this season in a different direction, and it means some of these characters are going to go back to their shady ways. Which is why it comes as no surprise that Victor lies to Alicia about how Sanjay dies.

It’s also not a shocker to learn that there is no weapon inside of the plant either. It was just Virginia’s plan to test Victor, and apparently, he succeeded. He officially is made a Scout of her group and has his own army he will lead. Isn’t Virginia a bit too trusting too fast?

Fear The Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 2 recap: An unexpected surprise

As the episode comes to a close, there are more efforts to “get” Daniel’s memory back. Charlie tries to remind him of events of the past, but it seems like nothing is really working. Meanwhile, Victor made a decision I certainly was not expecting–sending Alicia away.

After saying she reminded him of who he was, he reveals he doesn’t want to remember that guy. Alicia being around will do just that, and so she has to go. If he is to do what he needs to do for their sake, then she cannot be there to distract him in any way.

It’s an interesting decision to make on his end, but I do think it will make for some riveting Victor moments as the season progresses. I’m excited to see this side of his return to the fold after so many seasons.

In the final moments of the episode, Daniel is seen leaving Lawton and claims they have to stop because he forgot his nice pair of scissors. Of course, there is clearly something going on here, and I’m happy to report my suspicions are correct!

Not only do we learn that Daniel is indeed faking the memory loss, but he will now be officially teaming up with…MORGAN. Yes, that’s right, Morgan shows up at the very end, and based on his new rugged look, there is some mayhem in everyone’s very near future.

What are your thoughts on this episode of Fear the Walking Dead? Let us know in the comments!