To say that this episode of Fear the Walking Dead is a stressful one doesn’t quite encompass how truly nerve-wracking it truly is.
Like the title says, the time is ticking to stop Teddy’s (John Glover) plan to destroy the Earth with some nuclear warheads he found in the beached submarine USS Pennsylvania.
But, to get there, Morgan’s (Lennie James) group has to navigate a beached submarine with no other knowledge than via questionable radio contact with Luciana (Danay Garcia) and Jacob (Peter Jacobson) and the soggy naval books they have available for the location.
So, did they do it? Well, let’s find out.
Dakota is still a righteous little pain — but now she’s worried
Dakota (Zoe Colletti) has always been the typical little teen brat that seems to populate Fear the Walking Dead.
The penultimate episode for Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead sees her chatting with Teddy and it is here that she discovers that Teddy has put her on his team and not Alicia’s (Alycia Debnam-Carey). Trust me on this when I say that you don’t ever want to be on Team Teddy.
I mean, we all knew this from the start. Who wants to follow a serial killer, after all?
I had high hopes that Dakota would come around thanks to the way she was treated as a child by her grandparents and then after the zombie apocalypse by her sister/mother, Virginia (Colby Minifie). However, even though there is a small flicker of doubt when Teddy mentions that Team Teddy means death and Team Alicia means you get to live, Dakota goes fully to the dark side in Episode 15.
It is also at this point that the audience discovers that Riley (Nick Riley) is the real person to blame in the whole blowing up the world scenario as he used to work on the submarine and, when Teddy found him, he decided the crazy dark side looked pretty good too.
Morgan still has that complex that makes him so annoying
While Team Teddy has decided the fate of the world on their behalf, Morgan’s group are doing everything within their power to stop the destruction.
They have tracked down the submarine and broken into it before going on a hunt for the main control room so that they can put a stop to Teddy’s dastardly plan.
While all of this is going on, Morgan is having his usual dilemma where he thinks that everything rests on his shoulders and that he must die for everyone else while doing everything he can to singlehandedly save everyone else.
Once inside the submarine, he and his group also have the added complication of not knowing the layout and having to rely entirely on dodgy radio reception to get through to Luciana, who has a map of the sub.
It’s like a game of Pac-Man in there, too. Not only do they have no idea where they’re going half the time, but the crew of the sub are still onboard. Except, there are not four of them like the ghosts in Pac-Man; instead, there are 150 hundred of them, according to Luciana.
And, they’re all members of Team Undead now.
So s**t gets real pretty quickly after that.
While they are trying to navigate the sub, Morgan sneaks off on his own little agenda because he still seems to think he has to die to save everyone, especially so since he gave up his key in order to save Grace (Karen David).
However, Strand (Colman Domingo) tags along and Morgan has no choice but to allow it because they know that time is ticking and that Teddy and Riley could launch their warheads at any given moment.
Strand is still, well, Strand…
You know how you never quite know where you stand with Strand? Well, other than knowing that he only puts himself first.
Well, this episode of Fear the Walking Dead will certainly make everything clear.
Strand wants to be a hero when it comes to saving everyone. And, for some reason, Alicia’s opinion of him matters the most. He thinks that because Alicia contacted him regarding the location of the sub, it means that he should bask in the glory.
Which is totally why he throws Morgan to the walkers and takes off on his own mission to stop Teddy.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment.
It looks bad, really bad, as Strand leaves Morgan behind, having snapped off the blade and left Morgan with the stick end. But, at least we now know the levels to which Strand will stoop.
Except Morgan didn’t die. Maybe that’s why Strand only took the blade of his weapon to give him a chance? Regardless, Morgan is now annoyed as hell and knocks Dakota out cold when she shows up fully converted.
But, at least she lets everyone else in Morgan’s group know what a terrible person Strand is before that. So, that should be fun for him if they all manage to survive the impending doom.
He then goes on to the final barrier — the door leading into the control room where Teddy and Riley are now just starting up the warheads launch using the two keys that Teddy’s group have been after since we first heard about them.
Not only did Morgan manage to kill a bunch of walkers attacking him, but he also pinched all of their key cards. As Morgan tries them all to access the control room, Strand gets all philosophical and states that if he hadn’t thrown Morgan to the walkers, then he wouldn’t have access cards now.
Yeah, nice try Strand but everyone still hates you.
Finally, Morgan gains access with the very last card that he tries and rushes into the room.
It’s too late, though, and one warhead has already been launched but, at least, he manages to stop the others.
He celebrates by letting Riley and Teddy go.
Yeah, I’m scratching my head over this one too.
So, the episode ends with Morgan alone inside the control room and a warhead flying through the air to who knows where.
Although, thanks to the timeline, we know it doesn’t strike anywhere near the communities in The Walking Dead. But anywhere else is fair game.
All of the stuff that doesn’t make sense
While I absolutely got caught up in the tension of this episode, there are also a few things that totally irked me.
The main thing being the fact that somehow Teddy, Riley, and Dakota made it to the control room of the USS Pennsylvania without apparently encountering any of the other 150 undead crew members onboard. Instead, Morgan’s group had to deal with them.
I mean, just how? Does Riley know a secret way in? That was the only plausible thing I could come up with.
Also, just how easy is it to get a hold of those two keys required to launch all of the warheads onboard the sub? This has been something that has been bothering me for a while but, knowing nothing about nuclear warheads or naval procedures in the US, I let it slide.
The writer for Forbes has also had this thought as well and points out that these keys should be “locked in safes that require specific codes to unlock. Those codes are provided in the event the president of the United States authorizes nuclear strikes.”
This also means that people like Riley would not have access to the keys and Morgan would most certainly not end up with one.
Also, everyone on Team Teddy is supposed to be on board the sub. But, other than Riley, Dakota, and one hugely radioactive woman onboard, they are nowhere to be seen.
Surely, if they are there, as Teddy suggests, at least some of them would be utilized as guards since Teddy knows that Morgan knows where they are.
Finally, can we just address all of Morgan’s stupid decision-making skills in this episode? Sure, it seems to be in his DNA to think he has more troubles than most. But why knock Dakota out and walk away? Why let Riley and Teddy go?
Honestly, he needs to take a good hard look at himself while we all wait for the Season 6 finale of Fear the Walking Dead to drop next Sunday night.
Fear the Walking Dead airs Sunday nights at 9/8c on AMC.