On Season 2 Episode 5 of Fear the Walking Dead, titled Captive, Alicia and Travis are held captive on Connor’s ship while Madison, Strand and Daniel decide what to do with Reed. Alex from Flight 462 makes an appearance as well, and is not very happy with Travis. Josh provides the recap, and following the recap, both Josh and Violet provide their thoughts on the episode.
- His thoughts on Captive, Episode 205 of Fear the Walking Dead
- Her thoughts on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2 Episode 5: Captive
Alicia’s Held Captive on Connor’s Ship
Fear the Walking Dead begins with some food preparation! Connor makes a wonderful steak for Alicia back on his boat. Alicia looks around concerned, not sure how to proceed. Connor tells Alicia that he makes sure everyone has a hot meal, even now. Alicia asks to see Jack and Travis, but Connor tells her he wants to get to know her alone. He sits down to eat with her, but the power goes out, so he has to investigate. Alicia has a bite of her steak, but she gets a rude awakening. Vida, the pregnant woman, takes her food away.
Baffled, Alicia gets up, and realizes she has been locked in the room. She wanders some, finding all locked doors on the ship. Finally she finds a door leading outside, and she discovers she is on a big vessel that is currently docked on the shore. But she is too high to be able to escape.
Jack finds her, and tells her that if Connor found her out there, she would be in trouble. Inside, the power comes back on. Alicia demands to see Travis. She also asks if her family made it to land. Jack says he will find out for her.
A little later, Jack gives Alicia her job. While showing her, Alicia snags a knife from Jack. Her job is not a nice one though. She has to lure people in, just as Jack lured her in. She is supposed to examine the sonar, and pick boats to hail, and convince them to meet up with them.
Alicia and Jack are working on picking a boat. Jack notices something on the list of ships they have been tracking, and Alicia demands to know what he sees. She realizes that it is the Abigail, and it has been gone too short of time to drop her family off at shore. Alicia demands to know where her family is, and he says he doesn’t know. But Jack then seems to hint that Reed may have killed them. Alicia says she has to find her family. Jack says he will go with her.
Jack and Alicia pick out a boat for Connor to recon. Alicia thinks while Connor is gone, they will have enough time to make their getaway. Jack calls Connor to let him know.
Travis Reunites with Alex
Meanwhile, Travis is in a cell below deck it looks like. He tries to find a way out, and there is none. He finds something in a book, which he tries to use to pick the lock, but he hears footsteps approaching. It is a woman. This woman is Alex — the woman on the raft from Flight 462.
She talks with Travis, but not very nicely. She reveals that she had to kill Jake, the kid who had severe burns. He was about to turn, so she strangled him and threw him overboard. Travis tries to comfort her, saying she had to do it. He tries to commiserate with her too, saying he had to kill his ex-wife. Alex also tells Travis about Alicia being put to work. Alex also tells Travis that she saw that he knew he should help, but chose not to.
Alex reveals that she is the one who gave the exact Abigail location, and that she wanted Travis specifically. Travis admits he is no better than “the man who cut the rope.” But he pleads that they can be more than what they have become. Alex is not so sure though.
Then Alicia and Jack come down to see Travis. Alicia tells Travis about the plan, and that she will come back for him, but Travis tells her to go without him.
Madison and the Group Work to Save Travis and Abigail
On the Abigail, Reed seems to be pretty cocky given his metal crowbar sticking out of his stomach. Daniel is tending his wound, and Reed makes comments about what happened to his father. Chris is sitting in the room, listening to Reed’s yammering. Reed gives a warning, that Connor will be not happy to see what has happened to Reed. Daniel gives his wound a little nudge, which causes Reed to wince. Reed then says that he will take Daniel’s daughter apart. Daniel has a clever response though–the most fearful people are the ones who don’t say how scary they are.
Daniel heads out, and Chris offers to stand guard. Daniel tells him to stand outside the door, and not to engage him. Ofelia walks up and wants to know what Daniel was doing with Reed. She also thinks Chris should be upstairs. Daniel thinks Chris needs something to keep his mind busy.
Madison is tending to Strand, who is sleeping, and Daniel tells Madison what he learned–that Reed is Connor’s brother, and Connor is the leader of the other boat. Looking at the boat’s sonar, Madison and Daniel think they know which boat is Connor’s.
Luis then comes to Madison, who has already turned the boat towards Connor’s and wonders what is going on. He says he has to be in Mexico, or they will miss the window. Strand, meanwhile, wakes up, and seems to think that they can get Travis and Alicia and get to Mexico still. Luis then proceeds to tell Madison that they only have entry for two people where ever they are going. Strand thinks he can negotiate for the rest of the people.
Madison, meanwhile, says that since the boat is expected back with Connor, and says they might have to use force. Daniel says the children will have to help if they attack, and Madison refuses to let that happen.
Madison is still driving towards Connor, and she and Strand talk. Madison warns that Nick will not go on anymore of Strand’s errands. Strand says that Nick can move through this world very well.
Madison pays a visit to Nick, who is below deck, reloading some clips. She is concerned he is getting too comfortable with the pistol he has.
Daniel and Strand, meanwhile, scan the area where Connor’s boat should be. Daniel remarks how he is surprised that Strand is willing to help. They identify the boat though, and prepare to make a deal.
Chris, meanwhile, listens to Reed, and Reed shoots more insults through his coughing. Chris heads inside to trade insults. Nick overhears Reed talking, and talks with Chris, trying to calm him down. Chris then says that the situation they are in now is his fault, because he froze, not shooting Reed and the other people who boarded them. Nick tells him it is not his fault, and to not let Reed get inside his head.
Madison Makes a Deal with Connor, but Loses Her Bargaining Chip – Reed
On the radio, Connor radios telling Reed to drop anchor and get back to their ship. Madison responds telling Connor that Reed is alive, but the other men are dead since they were not given safe passage. Madison demands to trade Reed for Travis and Alicia. Nick volunteers to bring Reed to Connor, but Madison says she will do it.
They then hear a gunshot, and rush down to find that Chris has shot Reed. Chris says Reed was going to turn, and walks away. The group seems to think the plan is done, since Reed is now dead. But apparently Chris missed Reed’s brain, and Reed turns. Daniel comes up with a plan–to use walker Reed for the trade. While Daniel gets walker-Reed ready, Daniel seems to be hearing voices say, “take the gun”…
Travis is prepared for the trade. But Alicia hides herself to make her escape. She runs into Vida though, and the two fight. Alicia gets Vida locked into a cell. Madison, meanwhile, loads up onto the pontoon boat, and heads to meet Connor for the trade.
At the dock, Madison asks where Alicia is and Connor tells Madison she will see her when Reed is found to be all right. Madison shoves Reed towards Connor and Reed makes enough havoc for Madison and Travis to get the upperhand. Alicia, meanwhile, made it to the back of the boat, on the deck, when Jack confronts her. Jack tries to talk her into staying, but she leaps slides down the back of the boat, and Madison picks her up from the water. The pontoon boat heads back for the Abigail.
His Thoughts on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2 Episode 5: Captive
I just don’t understand these characters, in general, nor the writing or the show, unfortunately. Alicia is tricked into being kidnapped by Jack, but then seems to have a plan to run away with him in the episode, and only doesn’t because something outside is going on, which she is probably not fully aware of. She then is able to somehow know to escape to the top of the boat, and slide off the back, which doesn’t slow her down at all. I guess maybe I could buy this if this was the only semi-non-believable thing going on here, but there is a whole host of things.
Who lets a teenage kid play guard to a murderous captive? Chris had no business standing guard, especially given his emotional state right now. He clearly killed Reed without any real cause other than Reed mouthing off. It was pretty clear that Chris was not in the midst of turning as it takes a while for him to actually turn.
Why does Madison take walker-Reed to Connor by herself? A single person, going up against 4 or 5 people, at least makes no sense at all. Sure she has walker Reed, but wouldn’t they be able to hear the walker sounds from a little distance? Wouldn’t they want to see Reed’s face before they make the trade? Why did Reed have a bag over his head anyway? I am pretty sure that would be alarming to Connor given that Reed already knows where he is going.
But it looks like we have a couple problems going forward, after another less-than thrilling episode. Daniel is apparently hearing voices now. That seems to be scary. Their trip to Mexico seems to be a problem given there are only “tickets” for two people so far. On top of that, a few of Connor’s people are still alive, so we might be seeing them again in one way or another.
Her Thoughts on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2 Episode 5: Captive
I guess one positive thing I can say about this episode is that at least it was a little more exciting than the previous episodes? But as far as things making sense, and characters’ decisions making sense, that has not improved, unsurprisingly.
Okay, so they kept building up these Flight 462 mini-episodes as a way to build up to Fear the Walking Dead — which would suggest that the events and characters of those mini-episodes would end up being important to Fear the Walking Dead. However, it doesn’t feel like that is the case. Yes, we did end up seeing the debris from the plane crash on a previous episode of Fear the Walking Dead, but overall, it almost feels like those mini-episodes were irrelevant. The majority of those episodes focused on the kid, Jake, but in the end, he winds up being badly burned, and Alex strangles him to death after going through a lot of efforts to keep him alive, against all odds. So, basically the whole point of Flight 462 was so that we could meet Alex, who would ultimately betray the group, and Jake doesn’t really matter at all. Yeah, okay. So then when Alex does betray the group, it’s not the bad guy that cut wouldn’t allow them on the boat and who cut their tow that Alex wants Connor to bring in, it’s the guy that was fighting to try to do something to help them that she wants brought in. I suppose you could argue that they thought Strand was dead, but still. She doesn’t know what Strand would have done to Travis if Travis had gone against him. Travis was trying to help how he could, and it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t able to help them more. Plus, Alex ending up having to strangle Jake just proved Strand’s point about not allowing them on the yacht, because they wouldn’t want to chance having someone on the boat who has the potential to turn. Jake was pretty far gone, it’s very unlikely that anyone on the yacht could have done anything to save him. Even a fully functioning hospital would have had a hard time with that.
I don’t get why Chris was posted as guard to Reed. Obviously, he was being affected by the things Reed was saying. It actually looked like no one was going to guard Reed until Chris volunteered. Daniel’s explanation is that Chris needs something to keep his mind busy, but I don’t think standing outside a room doing nothing is a way to keep his mind busy. Of course, this leads to Chris being dumb and shooting Reed, which miraculously turns into a good thing, because then they can use walker Reed as a weapon against Connor. Funny how walker Reed was making lots of noises and moving around pretty much non-stop until it was time for the hand off. He was then mysteriously still and quiet, not tipping off Connor and the others about being a walker now. Convenient. Also, Alicia conveniently knew exactly how to safely get off the ship and to the raft somehow. Whatever.
Anyway, I guess next we’re off to Mexico. Or at least, to try to get to Mexico, since there’s still the issue that only 2 people are supposed to go.
Scenes from Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2 Episode 6: Scut Cervus
Preview of Season 2 Episode 6 of Fear the Walking Dead
I like the show but it feels like they are already lifting things directly from The Walking Dead.