Fear The Walking Dead: Pablo & Jessica

Synopsis for 2×11: Teamwork is the name of the game this week. Madison and Strand strike a deal with the hostile hotel guests and Nick uses his past to help the Colonia get more supplies, more time, and more hope.

Fear The Walking Dead makes liberal use of flashbacks, with this episode being no different, as audiences see how Strand and Madison escape from behind the bar unharmed in order to save Alicia, Elena, and Hector. Spoiler: they took a page out of Nick’s playbook and cover themselves in the blood of an infected. With careful steps, they make it out of the bar area and are able to shut the door behind them.

They make it outside, only to find the truck is gone. Strand has to point out that the infected don’t drive and he assumes that Ofelia and Alicia took it. Madison is less sure because she knows she heard Alicia yelling for her. Waiting for whatever happens next, Strand and Madison argue lightly over where Alicia is – he thinks she left to survive and Madison says she’s self-reliant, she made Alicia that way. Soon, they hear Alicia yelling through a door and we’re up to speed where the last episode ended.

Nick still feels guilty about his antics when he last went on a supply run, which fuels him to go to Alejandro with a can of powdered milk. He pitches Alejandro the idea of cutting the remaining oxycontin pills so that they have more to trade and the supplies will last longer, leading to more hope. There’s some peppy music overlaying his cutting and reforming of pills, but in the end it appears as if the plan will work out.

Reunited, Madison thinks they should go after Ofelia and the truck, but Alicia and Strand agree that she chose to go because she didn’t think the group was going to make it. With limited supplies, they realize they have to work with the other hotel guests in order to survive.

Once Nick is finished making the pills, both he and Alejandro are pleased with the results. They get into a discussion about Alejandro’s bite and Nick’s lack of faith, with Alejandro sharing the real story of his bite. Apparently, he tried to save a junkie like Nick when people mistook him for one of the infected and was bitten in the process. The boy died, but Luciana brought Alejandro back to the Colonia and he survived.

Luciana is playing soccer with the kids when Nick joins in. It’s a light moment for Nick before Luciana sees a blood covered scout tell Alejandro something. Even from far off, Luciana knows that he’s bringing news that they found Pablo. She quickly abandons the game and Nick is left to watch their interactions before they leave to scout outside the walls.

When they’re outside, Nick tries to comfort her by telling Luciana she didn’t need to come since her boyfriend had just died. She quickly corrects him, Pablo was her brother, and shares the rest of her family history with him. She’s conflicted and doesn’t know what to do anymore, with Nick only able to offer a reassuring hug.

On the first floor of the hotel, Alicia, Hector, and Strand are clearing rooms. Out on the beach, Madison and some of the other hotel guests are outside helping to build a pyre for the infected they’re dragging outside. When Alicia gets there, she and Madison take a walk and have a heart to heart about how Alicia was raised and what Madison feels like she did wrong. Alicia assures her nothing was done wrong before coming up with a faster plan to clear the hotel out.

Elena lends her expert knowledge of the hotel to come up with a plan where they can funnel the infected down the pier and into the water after bringing them from the rooms and the grounds of the hotel. Madison walks them all the way down the pier before jumping into the water and swimming to a boat piloted by Alicia, who picks her up. It’s actually a very interesting scene that comes with some fantastic shots of infected filling up the long pier.

With a job well done, the hotel guests and Madison’s group sit down to dinner together, but Oscar and the mother of the bride are both absent. Strand asks Elena for the honeymoon suite and excuses himself to get things from that room. He runs into Oscar standing guard, where his bride Jessica is still infected and staying, and they share some feelings of pain and loss. After some heart-wrenching moments, Victor convinces Oscar to let him “help” Jessica.

Luciana fell asleep in Nick’s bed on accident and tries to hustle her way out of his place, saying that people will talk shit if she stays there and sleeps while he reads on the floor. Before she can leave, Nick asks her if she’s testing him like Alejandro told him. She doesn’t say anything, but she does turn back into the room and kiss him.