Alicia’s last episode, for me, no matter what happens, is going to be an official turning point in how I view this show. She has already made a post on her social media that she views this as an official goodbye to the show, but time will tell, obviously.
The group is set up on the coast with the rafts, ready to hit the water for a new home. Alicia is with them and is not doing so well. She believes she sees a familiar girl, someone who knows how to get to Padre, so she musters up her strength to follow. She sees things, imagining that this other person is there, a younger version of herself. She heads back to the tower, thinking it has the answers, but she passes out outside of the tower. She imagines that this younger girl kills walkers and calls for help, but when we see her friends bringing Alicia back, they tell her she was by herself and was the one calling for help.
Alicia convinces her friends to help her get into the tower to use the radio to send a signal out. Out of trust and loyalty to Alicia, the group decides to help clear her a path inside the tunnel, she insists she will go by herself, and everyone else should get to the rafts and work on the preparations to depart. Alicia is able to will herself inside with the help of her vision of her younger self. Once she makes it to the roof, she is dismayed to find that the radio is busted and not useable. So she decides that her real mission is to save Strand, who has given up home by drinking himself to oblivion, inside, so he can help lead the group of survivors to some sort of safety.
That is what this turns into, a rescue mission for Strand. They are able to somehow will themselves out of the tower until they get to the MRAT that was left at some spot between the tower and the coast, and she calls for assistance again. The group is shocked and obviously upset to see that Alicia’s mission turned out to be a rescue mission for the swine Strand.
Towards the end, everyone is in rafts, or paired up, ready to set off, but an obviously sick Alicia is in one raft by herself. She insists she doesn’t know how long she has left and might turn before they reach any destination. Strand comes to offer his services to go with Alicia, and she, in a way, flips out, saying she can’t be responsible for what might happen. She exits the raft and lets Strand take it himself. She says that some people must have heard the radio messages and are going to the tower with a death wish. So she will go to try to save people and tell them where to go before she dies, so she passes out on the beach after everyone else departs.
The show left things up to interpretation unless you saw the interview with the producers, but it looks like Alicia rested a bit, and when she woke, she started to feel better. She looked healthier, acted healthier, and picked herself up, and headed towards the tower alone. Some could have taken that as a dream sequence or death sequence. I looked at it as an open-ended way to keep the options open for her to return if she so chooses.
But this is another example of someone wanting to be written off the show. Nick, John Dorie, and now Alicia actors have asked to be written off the show for different reasons. Alicia is the only one where we didn’t literally see the death. She stated in an Instagram post that she was done with the show. She has been doing this for around eight years now and has decided it’s time to pursue other interests. She has been slated to be in a show on, I think, Hulu as a lead character. With that said, I do understand why the Fear the Walking Dead franchise has decided to keep it open-ended for one. The actress for Maggie Greene left the flagship show for a while over money and had another show that bombed and was canceled after a season or two, and she found her way back to the show. Another example is Madison Clarke’s actress was off this show for a few years, and with the previews of the season finale, we see she returns. Though, with everything going on, the fact that the writers couldn’t figure out a way to have the Madison character reunite with her mom’s character, even for an episode before she left the show, is straight insanity. If you feel I’m crabby now, which, to be fair, I am, just wait until next week when Madison returns. For those that aren’t aware, I absolutely loathe that character in this show.
