Fear the Walking Dead Recap: SPOILER Dies a Villain

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Divine Providence” episode of Fear the Walking Dead. “At the end of the day, people are people. And they’re just gonna leave you wanting more.” That’s the post-apocalyptic philosophy Wes (Colby Hollman) shared with his brother Derek (Chinaza Uche), who joined an underground cult as Wes aligned with Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) in Season 5 of Fear the Walking Dead. “This is the way things are now,” a pessimistic Wes told Alicia and Strand. “We shoot. We kill.” At the end of the day, people are people.

That ideology drove Wes to side with Strand in the war for the Tower in “Ofelia,” telling Luciana (Danay Garcia), “Strand and Alicia tried to make me see things differently when they found me. And they did, for a little while.”

It was Luciana’s care for Daniel Salazar (Ruben Blades), suffering from PTSD-caused memory loss, that made Wes “want to believe that people weren’t always people. I might’ve been wrong. There might just be some kind of hope left for all of us.” But when Luciana lied to Daniel about his dead daughter being a prisoner of Strand’s Tower — a tactic to get the confused Daniel to fight Alicia’s war — a disillusioned Wes defected from the group and joined Strand’s army as his new right-hand man.

Strand says it’s “Divine Providence” when Alicia returns to The Tower to talk with her old friend-turned-foe for the first time since she declared war against Strand in the mid-season finale. “At the end of the day,” Wes tells Alicia of his heel turn, “you, Morgan, and Luci are just like Victor. At least he owns the shit he does.” 

Wes warns against letting Alicia inside, but Strand reveals his strategy: light the beacon on the Tower roof to draw an irradiated walker horde to kill Alicia’s army waiting outside. “When I first lit that beacon, I did it to keep you out,” hisses Strand. “Now it’s to keep you in.” 

At gunpoint, Alicia orders Strand to turn off the light. Still suffering from her mysterious illness, a feverish Alicia agrees to stay in Strand’s Tower with him if he turns off the light and calls a cease-fire. Wes switches sides again — taking his own. Turning his gun against Strand with mutinous Rangers, Wes says, “Somebody’s got to protect what you’ve built. If you won’t do it, I will.” If Alicia and Strand want to reach the roof and turn off the beacon, they’ll have to get through an army of Rangers.  

Strand shoots at Wes and flees to a stairwell with Alicia. Wes orders the captive Daniel to be killed, but he escapes his cell and runs into Alicia and Strand. Trapped inside the Tower, and unable to reach the group outside to warn them about the radioactive walker horde headed their way, Alicia, Strand, and Daniel work together to reach the Tower roof. Strand lies to Daniel, telling him his daughter — who died in Fear‘s Season 3 — is alive and on the top floor. They need his help to get there. 

“I know you must think I’m a monster, but I’m the same man I’ve always been. I’ve just stopped apologizing for it,” Strand tells Alicia. He’s willing to turn off the beacon “because I want you to see that everything that I’ve done was worth it. As Strand tends to the ailing Alicia in the Tower infirmary, the foggy-brained Daniel realizes Strand lied about Ofelia. Strand says he’s “trying to save the closest thing I have to a daughter,” and so is Daniel: the 13-year-old Charlie (Alexa Nisenson), lying in a hospital bed slowly succumbing to radiation poision. 

When Wes and his Rangers corner Alicia and Strand, Wes says he wanted to believe the best in Alicia, “But we are who we are. You’ve come so far. Finish what you started, Victor. You have to protect what you’ve built here. It’s honest. It’s real.” Unlike Alicia’s search for PADRE, Strand’s Tower “doesn’t try to be something that’s not possible.” 

“You know, I was thinking about the day we met. And I told you that people are people. I thought you were the exception to that rule,” Wes confesses to Alicia. “But now I know no one is.” Alicia admits she wanted to reach the roof and use a transmitter to broadcast a message to people looking for PADRE — a safe haven she would make real at the Tower.

Wes’ Rangers ready their guns to kill Alicia. Accepting her death, Alicia braces herself as shots fire out. Daniel fires on the Rangers, killing them. Wes shoots Daniel in the arm. 

Alicia lunges for a weapon and turns it against Wes. Staring down his gun, Alicia appeals to his better angels: “I saved your life once. We both did. You believed in us once before. And I’m just asking you to do the same thing-“

Strand stabs Wes in the chest with a sword, killing him. In shock, Alicia asks, “Why would you do that?” Strand replies, “The same reason I built the Tower the way I did. So you wouldn’t have to.” 

“You ruined it by what you did to Wes,” Alicia says, telling Strand he always has a choice – and he always makes the wrong ones. As Alicia and Strand’s fight turns physical, they damage the beacon, casting the rooftop in darkness. Climbing atop the structure, Alicia’s transmitter broadcasts a message:

“This is Alicia Clark. If you’re listening to this, you’re not alone. The place you’ve been looking for, the place you’ve heard about, PADRE, it’s here: the Tower. We’re gonna build the new home you’ve been looking for. We can help you. But first… we’re gonna need a little help from you.”

Morgan’s group escapes the walker horde inside the safety of the Tower lobby. Sparks from the shattered light set the roof ablaze, starting a fire threatening to spread through the whole building — destroying the newly christened PADRE. A feverish Alicia collapses as the Tower roof burns. End of episode.

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 air Sundays on AMC. 

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