*********************************WARNING***********************************
This episode includes very strong subject matters such as mental health and suicide. I know this show deals with many things: walkers, deaths, gruesome kills, but this is something that everyone can experience at any time. If you feel alone, you might be alone physically at that moment, but you are not alone. People are a phone or text call away at 988. In society, it is taboo to speak about, but you may have family and friends who have or are experiencing the same things but are too ashamed to talk about it.
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With that important message out of the way, this episode was another difficult struggle to work through. This series can’t end soon enough, sadly. This will be another shorter recap as this episode was streamlined between one story thread, with no jumping around. Madison and the group are trying to figure out how to take out Troy while also trying to find gas to keep Padre going. This causes them to cross paths with Luciana, and she has been making gas for PADRE for years. She did it in exchange for Daniel’s freedom. She has been working at the refinery for seven years, and she has been slowly pilfering items from Padre’s containers. She has set up twenty-three stations from there to Arizona that have supplies and gas for travelers.
Luciana didn’t want Madison and the rest of the group to see who was driving the tanker. The driver was Charlie, but Madison didn’t know the truth about Charlie and Nick. When Charlie comes out and admits it to Madison, she goes crazy. Madison manipulates Charlie to try to overthrow Troy for ‘forgiveness.’ Madison snaps out of it too late, though, as Charlie already was on her way and was captured by Troy. Madison and others try to get Charlie back, but Troy wants the location of PADRE to let Charlie go. Charlie kills a soldier and talks on the radio. Madison is going to relent and give up PADRE, but Charlie doesn’t want to see another home get destroyed. So Charlie says that Troy can’t get what he wants if he doesn’t have anything to trade, so Charlie commits suicide so they don’t have anything to exchange for the location. This is another reason that I just loathe Madison. Charlie survived the Apocalypse as a kid, found a group, and infiltrated a number of communities at the request of her new group, and nothing happened. She gets radiation poisoning and is able to survive for seven years with that, but she spends an hour or two with Madison, and it’s the start of her demise. I would say unreal, but it is Madison, after all.
Troy’s group has kids, and his daughter Tracy is missing. Both groups scatter, with Troy and Madison having a little fight before Madison and company leave. Everyone is broken. Daniel goes with Luciana because he is fed up with Madison. Strand takes the tanker to PADRE and won’t get any other gas in the future. Luciana is upset that Troy knows about her and her people, and they are at risk. Madison is left all alone and sets off to who knows, and frankly, I don’t care where.
