On this week’s episode of Fear The Walking Dead, we learn what's been going on with an old friend.
The last time we saw Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) was when he lit a whole compound on fire, presumably perishing in the blaze.
Dazed and dehydrated (but alive), Daniel is wandering the streets looking for water. He meets Efrain, a man who takes him to fountain in the middle of a dry wasteland. Like magic, the fountain turns on, apparently spurting water every Tuesday at 5pm. “A little miracle”, Efrain calls it. Both of them seem to hit it off quite nicely, with Daniel even giving his new friend a hair cut. They have a heart-to-heart over dinner, with Daniel admits his burdens and all the guilt he’s been harbouring over the deaths of the people he’s killed. His main fear, though, is that his daughter, Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) didn’t make it out of the fire. While Efrain sleeps, Daniel slips out of the their little cave and is knocked unconscious by a flash of lightning.
When Daniel comes to, he finds himself at the mercy of Dante and his men. After a brief run in with the head of Dante’s security (note to self, don’t touch Daniel’s food), he learns that Daniel was a member of la Sombra Negra, and even asks him to be one of his henchmen.
But this week’s best “ah, sh*t” moment was when Daniel walked in and saw Dante beating the living daylights out of Efrain, trying to get him to confess to stealing the water. It really seemed like a battle of the wills: the side of morals or the survival side? When Daniel was confessing to Efrain about the terrible things he had done in El Savador, he seemed truly haunted. It seemed like he never wanted to do something like that again. Faced with such a dilemna, a battle between his morals and his survival, it honestly seemed like he was going to choose survival. But, as Daniel tortures Efrain, he begs for his forgiveness. Efrain responds with a simple “again?”. Thankfully, though, the moral side of Daniel won. He chooses to kill Dante and save Efrain and Strand, rather than let them all fall to their deaths. If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt after two seasons of Fear The Walking Dead (and 7 seasons of their sister show The Walking Dead), it’s to never loose track of your morality.
As Daniel puts it to Efrain, “you didn’t have to help me… But you did.”
What’s going to be interesting about next week’s episode, is how Daniel will react to finding out that Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) lied to him about Ofelia. We still have no idea where Ofelia is (and whether or not she’s alive), yet Strand tells Daniel that she’s at the hotel and alive and well and “waiting for you”. The elder Salazar isn’t going to be happy when he finds out that Strand lied to him, and the aftermath probably isn’t going to be pretty. But, where is Ofelia? Is she even alive? And what has she been up to?
Meanwhile, enjoy this preview of next week's episode "Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame":
Fear The Walking Dead airs Sunday at 9pm on AMC.
