Fear the Walking Dead: Welcome to the Club (Episode 6.02)

While last week's season premiere of Fear the Walking Dead is nothing short of riveting, it fails to address the current location of many of our favorite survivors.

As promised, this Sunday's "bottle episode" provides further insight on the whereabouts of Alicia Clark, Victor Strand, and Daniel Salazar.

"Welcome to the Club" begins with Virginia's night crew being tasked with the near-impossible job of overcoming dozens of walkers covered in molasses.

Unfortunately, their efforts quickly go horribly wrong -- a partially jammed door causes Virginia's rangers and the entirety of her night crew (aside from a terrified, indecisive Sanjay) to become walker food.

Meanwhile, Alicia and Strand are on [excrement]-cleaning duty when they are approached by Marcus, one of Virginia's more hostile rangers.

When Strand challenges his authority, Marcus pulls a gun on both of them -- only to be talked down by Dakota, Virginia's younger sister.

Alicia and Strand are then taken into the town of Lawton, where they unexpectedly find Daniel cutting Virginia's hair.

During this troubling encounter, Daniel appears to be suffering from short-term memory loss -- Virginia insinuates that she's done something to him because of the trouble he caused while being separated from his cat, Skidmark.

Before Alicia and Strand are taken to their new job as part of Virginia's night crew, Daniel gives Strand his "St. Christopher's Medallion", insisting that it will help him bear heavy burdens.

Upon their arrival at the night crew's location, Alicia and Strand are reunited with Charlie and Janis. Strand believes that the group should form a plan to wipe out Virginia's rangers and escape -- Alicia isn't convinced.

The group quickly discovers that Dakota stowed away in their van to escape Lawton -- she tells Alicia that Strand cut a deal with Virginia, giving her the MRAP in exchange for allowing the two of them to remain together.

Strand believes that he needs Alicia to help him remember the person that he is -- a tune that quickly changes when Alicia's plan to rid the molasses-covered walkers goes awry.

In theory, fencing off walkers to pick them off one-by-one is a solid plan and has been effective across nearly a decade of episodes set in The Walking Dead universe.

However, in this particular instance, when the barricades are broken, all hell breaks loose -- a number of Virginia's rangers die, Dakota saves Charlie from certain death, and Strand is forced to make a life-altering decision.

After honking a horn to distract the walkers proves ineffective, Strand stabs Sanjay (the sole surviving night crew member) in the leg and feeds him to walkers in Shane-esque fashion, proceeding to lie about what happened to Alicia and company after they mow down the remaining walkers with guns.

Unfortunately, the gang then spends too long searching for Virginia's "weapon", quickly turning on Dakota and accusing her of lying (though Charlie believes Dakota, following her life-threatening incident).

When Virginia arrives on the scene, she informs Strand that they are all the key to survival, giving him a tangible "key to the city" and saying: "Congrats Victor, you just formed us an army."

The episode comes to its bittersweet conclusion with the survivors all going separate ways.

Daniel cuts Charlie's hair and continues the façade of his memory-loss -- he asks Charlie if she's a friend of his daughter Ofelia, pretending he cannot recall Skidmark or teaching her to play "End of the Line" by the Traveling Wilburys.

Meanwhile, Strand uses his newfound power to reassign Alicia, realizing that he should've trusted his instincts and overthrown Virginia's rangers -- he gifts Alicia the St. Christopher's Medallion, insisting that he needs to forget who he is but she doesn't.

Strand then tells Daniel that he envies his memory loss, completely unaware that Daniel is putting on an act, as he reunites with Morgan to preview an interesting dynamic in moving forward.

Before the screen fades to black, our new-and-improved cowboy Morgan steps out of the woods to shake hands with Daniel, greeted by the line, "Good to see you, Morgan. I thought it was you she was looking for."

What are your thoughts on this Sunday's episode?

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