Fear the Walking Dead: SPOILER Switches Sides

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Ofelia” episode of Fear the Walking Dead. “People suck.” That’s the thinking when Daniel Salazar’s (Ruben Blades) worsening mental state endangers Luciana (Danay Garcia) and Wes (Colby Hollman) in “Ofelia.” While Morgan (Lennie James) leads the submarine group on a mission to recover a weapons cache they’ll need to get into Strand’s Tower, he entrusts Luciana to continue working with Daniel and his PTSD-caused memory loss. If they’re going to take the Tower from Victor Strand (Colman Domingo), Morgan says, they’ll need Daniel’s sharp mind to outsmart his old enemy. 

When a confused Daniel wanders away from the submarine in search of his dead daughter, Ofelia Salazar (Mercedes Mason), the trio of Daniel, Luciana, and Wes are captured by the Stalkers: Teddy’s (John Glover) true believers now following Arno (Spenser Granese). 

At a walker-swamped boat graveyard, Arno attempts to get the coordinates of the weapons cache by dangling a caged Wes over a zombie horde. Daniel mistakes an old boat for the Abigail and believes his daughter is being kept prisoner aboard the yacht. Arno agrees to free Wes and Ofelia if Daniel gives up the location of the weapons.

After sending the Stalkers 20 miles out to the wrong coordinates, Daniel murders guard Sage (Jacob Kyle Young) and feeds Arno to the walkers for lying about Ofelia. Luciana tells the surviving Stalkers they’ll get their new beginning if they join forces to fight Strand and take his Tower.  

Wes tells Luciana can’t deliver what she’s promised Arno’s followers, but they have a secret weapon: “Someone who knows what Victor is thinking before he does.” Because Ofelia gives Daniel clarity and focus, Luciana lies and tells Daniel that Arno revealed Ofelia is alive in Strand’s Tower. 

The lie is the last straw for Wes, who recalls a saying shared with his brother Derek (Chinaza Uche): “‘People are people.’ It means people suck.”

Wes lost faith in people over the failures of leaders Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Strand, and Morgan, but Luciana’s work with Daniel “made me want to believe that people weren’t always people.” And then she manipulated Daniel with a lie threatening to break his fragile mind for good. 

“What you just did is proof that y’all are no better than the rest of us,” Wes says. “I can’t be around somebody pretending to be something that they’re not.” 

After Luciana and Daniel return to the submarine with Arno’s former followers, Wes shows up at the call box outside Strand’s Tower to cut a deal: “I can help save his Tower.”

“When Luciana makes the decision to lie to Daniel, it really is the last straw. It’s the thing that makes Wes say, like, ‘Wait a second, everything that everyone’s been telling me…,’ he now thinks that’s all just hypocritical lies,” showrunner Andrew Chambliss explained on AMC+’s Fear the Walking Dead: Episode Insider. “He’s essentially in this place where he’s saying, ‘You know what, I’ve had enough of this. I would rather be with someone who is at least owning what they do.’ And ultimately, that drives him to the call box.” 

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Follow @CameronBonomolo on Twitter & @NewsOfTheDead for TWD Universe coverage all season long.