Fear the Walking Dead: Episode 212 “Pillar of Salt”

This week’s installment of “Fear the Walking Dead” has tensions rising, as possibilities of the group getting back together are miraculously falling into place.

After the group parted ways in the mid-season finale, breaking into three separate factions, the show has been following each storyline separately. The colony that Nick has become a member of is experiencing poor leadership, and it has certain individuals leaving to try and make it on their own. The strength of the community is fading, as they are facing these troubles at home while simultaneously gearing up for conflict with the local cartel, which is in control of much of the area.

At the hotel where Madison, Strand, and Alycia reside, internal problems also arise. In a random act of confusion and sorrow, one of the original hotel residents stabs Strand, blaming him for the death of her daughter. Strand is quickly given medical attention, and the group leaders try to figure out what is going on. The woman was clearly deranged, because Strand wasn’t even present when her daughter died. In a controversial conclusion, Madison decides it best to lock the women up until they can figure out her motives and make sure she won’t do it again. I thought that the woman was trying to stab a different person and once she did it, she immediately regretted her decision. Either way though, she seemed very delusional and like she didn’t know what she was doing.

In this episode, we also find out what happened with Ophelia. In an earlier episode, she had abandoned Alycia and no one knew where she was. But in this episode, we find out that she left to revisit a special location that meant a lot to her. She visited the location in which her old fiancée proposed to her. Then, by the end of the episode, she decided to head back to the U.S.A. This installment was much of an emotional journey of Ophelia, dealing with her lost parents and having no true family left her spiritually lost and she needed time to figure everything out.

In the finale of the episode, Madison discovers a hint from a couple travelers that Nick might still be out there. In a desperate attempt to get her son back, she breaks into the hotel’s power grid and turns all of the lights on for a few moments, illuminating the deserted night sky. The lights can be seen for miles and we don’t know if Nick saw them or not. But in a teaser to next week’s episode, we see Travis glaring at the lights from a distance, implying that he will go and investigate. Madison demonstrated a lack of reason in doing this, because it could attract bad people to the hotel, which will cause danger to the group.

Hopefully by next week the group will find each other and get back together, but as the second season starts to wind down, we will have to wait and see. Be sure to tune in next Sunday at 9:00 p.m. to see the next episode of “Fear the Walking Dead.”