Fear the Walking Dead: Alicia Shades Strand in Midseason Finale Sneak Peek

Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) goes radio silent on Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) in a sneak peek from “Damage From the Inside,” the midseason finale of Fear the Walking Dead. The pair, close friends since surviving the onset of the zombie apocalypse with Alicia’s mother Madison (Kim Dickens), were last seen together in episode 602, “Welcome to the Club,” where newly-promoted Ranger Strand sent Alicia away with Charlie (Alexa Nisenson). When Strand comes across unusual walker activity while keeping watch over Dakota (Zoe Colletti), the younger sister of settlements leader Virginia (Colby Minifie), he urgently attempts to contact Alicia and Charlie’s remote outpost.

Strand says it’s a “matter of some urgency,” but Alicia ignores the call. When Strand reports a sighting of strange walker activity that she needs to see, Charlie asks if they should see what it’s about, but an apathetic Alicia retorts: “How long have we been out here? Six weeks? What’s he done for us?”

Charlie admits the answer is “nothing,” so Alicia tells her that’s “exactly what we’re gonna do for him.”

A trailer for the midseason finale airing November 22 reveals that Alicia ends up captured by an Ed Gein-type who is behind a horrifying horde of walkers set loose in “Damage From the Inside.” This person is seemingly behind the grave threat spooking Virginia, who grows increasingly frantic over the attacks and cryptic messaging — “The end is the beginning” — targeting her settlements.

Strange walkers have popped up throughout the season — a freshly-embalmed corpse nearly killed Althea (Maggie Grace) inside a funeral home in “Alaska,” and a walker with bladed fingertips attacked June (Jenna Elfman) in “Bury Her Next to Jasper’s Leg” — and this new enemy could bring Alicia and Strand back together or further drive them apart.

After Strand’s dirty deed in “Welcome to the Club,” where he used slop worker Sanjay (Satya Nikhil Polisetti) as human bait to save Alicia and Janis (Holly Curran), he decided to send Alicia someplace “far away” from him. As he explained to her: “You make me remember the person that I am, and to do all the things that I need to do now — for you, for me, for all of us — I have to forget that person. And I can’t do it with you by my side.”

“Strand has evolved in the last few seasons. I think Alicia has a version of Strand in her mind: she knows his heart, she know he cares for her, and he’s someone she could depend on. He’s pushing her away because he has to do some things that she may not like, things that may challenge her understanding of him,” Domingo explained to the AMC Blog earlier this season. “Strand wants Alicia to remember that version of him, because that’s important. He can’t have her present because it’s going to challenge the things that he needs to do. He has to make some really tough decisions in order to survive.”

Domingo added, “He doesn’t want to soil her vision of him, so she has to go away so he can become the man he needs to be in order to save them all.”

Fear the Walking Dead airs its midseason 6 finale on Sunday, November 22, at 9 pm ET / 8c on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.