The midseason finale of Fear the Walking Dead saw a deep-dive into what Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) has been up to since Teddy (John Glover) locked her in a government bunker in Episode 14 of the show’s sixth season.
And, boy, what a ride it has been for her!
Morgan’s (Lennie James) storyline also continued as well since he met up with Alicia in Episode 7 of Fear.
Finally, Victor Strand’s (Colman Domingo) descent into pure villain-dom continued as he hunted down Alicia.
But, in the middle of all this, a major character got bitten — not once, but twice.
Here’s who got bitten in the midseason finale of Fear the Walking Dead
Episode 8 of Fear the Walking Dead flipped between the present-day storyline featuring Alicia and Morgan, then returned to Alicia’s story with Will (Gus Halper), who was introduced — and killed — in the first episode of Season 7.
It’s here that viewers learn of Alicia’s struggle as she tries to find an escape route out of the bunker with the help of Will.
During this time, she inadvertently gets bitten by a walker and has to amputate her own arm in order to stave off infection.
The only problem is that the nuclear warheads have gone off overhead and caused the sewer she was traveling through to collapse around her. Will is there, but he has to work through rubble in order to get to her.
Alicia manages to hack off her arm — or at least part of it — before passing out. She awakens a week later, and Will informs her that her fever has broken.
This freaks Alicia out because she knows what a fever means: infection from the bite. Although, as Will points out, they were in a sewer, the infection could have come from anywhere.
All of this is revealed over the course of the episode, and when Victor turns up and speaks to Alicia, trying to persuade her to return to his Tower, Alicia gets bitten again by a walker.
Only, no one knows yet that the bite is to a part of her body that has already been amputated. Instead, she reveals that later in the episode, first to Morgan, then Victor.
Alicia Clark is still sick
While Alicia survived the initial amputation and infection of that first bite, she is now walking around with her own arm bones inside a metal cage and with metal claws attached, which is possibly the most awesomely creative arm amputation weaponry so far seen in the entire Walking Dead universe.
However, Alicia believes that she is still fighting off the walker infection and will die as a result of this at some point in the future. And, she certainly does look sick still from her harrowing experience.
This brings up a very interesting turn of events as bites from walkers are usually pretty quick at killing off a person. In Alicia’s case, though, this infection will be a long-term infection, according to Fear the Walking Dead co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss.
“We have seen many characters bit by walkers. We’ve seen many characters turn because of walker bites. But we haven’t actually seen anyone battle a walker bite long-term,” Chambliss said, according to Comic Book.
“Alicia is going to have a very tumultuous emotional journey in the back half of this season. We wanted a physical journey to go along with that. The bite, the fevers, and what Alicia’s going to be going through with Strand and some of the other characters this season are all really gonna work hand in hand.”
With confirmation by AMC that Alicia’s mother, Madison (Kim Dickens), will return in the second half of Season 7, fans are now hoping that Alicia does not succumb to the deadly infection before the pair are reunited.
Season 7 of Fear the Walking Dead will return to AMC on Sunday, April 17, 2022.