Fear the Walking Dead Twist: A Family Reunion With a Believed Dead Character

Spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 11, "The Holding." An unexpected family reunion takes place when Fear the Walking Dead digs into a new community called "The Holding," where disciples whose eyes have been opened by Teddy (John Glover) believe that "the end is the beginning." Teddy paints a picture for his followers: unlike people up above who "don't know how to open their eyes," this underground group knows the truth about the new beginning about to come. When Riley (Nick Stahl) welcomes Wes (Colby Hollman), Luciana (Danay Garcia), Althea (Maggie Grace), and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) to The Holding, they meet someone long believed dead.

Stepping out from an elevator is Derek (Chinaza Uche), the brother Wes thought was torn apart by walkers in Fear Season 5. The reunion is a happy one: both brothers believed the other to be dead. Derek reveals he was cornered by a walker herd outside of a grocery store and escaped to a shed, where he passed out. When he woke up, it was at The Holding.

In Season 5 Episode 11, "You're Still Here," Wes tells Alicia his brother died at the beginning of the apocalypse and left behind nothing but his motorcycle. "Nothing melodramatic, no great story. Just went out to get some condensed milk one day, didn't see an eater coming, and that was that," Wes reveals.

Derek taught Wes to paint, and Season 5 reveals it was Wes who painted the trees with hopeful messages that inspired Alicia after her mother's death.

In Season 6 Episode 6, "Bury Her Next to Jasper's Leg," Virginia (Colby Minifie) suspects Wes is the mole who blew up Tank Town when she discovers paint among his belongings and "the end is the beginning" spray-painted on a tower at the oil fields. June (Jenna Elfman) attempts to tend to a gravely wounded Wes after he suffers a stomach wound from the explosion, but Virginia questions him about his supposed-to-be-dead brother:

"Was your brother with them?" Virginia asks, sticking her finger into Wes's wound. "Look," Wes screams, "I don't know who 'them' is!"

It turns out Virginia's suspicions were correct: when Wes and Al discover Tank Town's coordinates on a map hidden in a can of condensed milk, Wes confronts his brother and urges him to escape Teddy's cult.

"You won't understand. You're not ready," Derek tells Wes in front of a mural he painted for The Holding. It's because "you can't see," Derek explains. "But it's okay. I couldn't see either. Not until I met Teddy."

"I got hit with shrapnel. I never felt such pain in my life. I almost died," Wes tells his brother about the explosion at Tank Town. "I lost friends. People I cared about."

Derek claims he didn't know Wes was there, but the result would have been the same: he would have sabotaged Tank Town and killed innocents because "it's what Teddy wants." The brainwashed Derek refuses an offer to join Wes at the community founded by Morgan Jones (Lennie James), telling his brother: "Those places up there, they're about how we used to live. This is how I want to live now."

Wes urges his brother to come with him. "You want a new beginning? You can have it, man. We both can. All you have to do is come with us." Derek says if he's caught, he'll be killed — and so will Wes and his friends.

When Wes and his friends are caught out by Riley and Harvey (Dean Neistat), he realizes they were played. "Only when you said you were with Morgan," Derek says.

He takes Wes to the place where he "saw the truth": a preserved walker strung up on a post and surrounded by growing "new life."

"Did you know I was there?" Wes asks about the oil fields. Derek says "people are people," ordering Wes again to open his eyes and tell him what he sees. "I see someone who's just like him. Someone who's still walking even though he's dead inside."

Derek smiles. "That's exactly how I felt." Wes shoots back: "I wasn't talking about me." A fight breaks out and the scuffle sends Derek tumbling into the tree walker, which tears into his flesh. Wes puts his brother down with a bullet to the head.

Before his death, Derek told Wes that Teddy's group has to "start over," but they can't do that "until everyone and everything up there is gone." Derek was talking about the nuclear apocalypse Teddy plans to unleash when he gets his hands on a second submarine key in Morgan's possession.

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.