Violet recaps Season 2 Episode 6 of Fear the Walking Dead, titled Sicut Cervus, where the group finally makes it to Mexico, but things aren’t as perfect as they seem… Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
- His thoughts on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2 Episode 6: Sicut Cervus
- Her thoughts on Season 2 Episode 6 of Fear the Walking Dead: Sicut Cervus
Fear the Walking Dead Recap, Season 2 Episode 6: Sicut Cervus
The episode begins with at a church in Mexico, where several people are attending mass, and receive communion. The priest tells the congregation that they must fight the evil, so they all arm themselves and go outside. Just then, Thomas Abigail drives up in his truck, and tells the priest to stop, telling the priest he’s fighting death with death, warning him that they’ll be dead by the time they get to the gate. Suddenly, all of the church goers begin bleeding from their eyes and they collapse, dying. The priest tells Thomas that this was Celia.
Meanwhile, on the yacht, Travis has a talk with Chris about what happened with Reed. Chris tells his father that he didn’t do anything wrong, but Travis tells him that Madison said that that Reed wasn’t sick when Chris shot him.
Luis is about to meet with their contact, Miguel, to make payment, when Miguel and another man drive their boat toward the yacht to board. Madison gathers up everyone to hide, since there’s only supposed to be two people, Strand and Luis, on the boat.
While they hide down below deck, Daniel eavesdrops and translates the conversation, where they discuss the payment, and he hears that they want to take a look around the boat. They hear gunshots and footsteps. Then they go up and investigate. They see that Luis has been shot, as well as the two men that boarded. Daniel stabs the two men in the head, while the boats circle and shoot at them. But when Daniel approaches Luis and is about to stab him in the head, Luis begs him not to. Ofelia convinces her father to let him be. Luis asks Daniel to give his mother a silver coin with a particular symbol on it. But Daniel tosses it into the ocean. Luis whispers something to Nick as he dies.
The yacht continues toward land, and the boats attacking them get out of the way and let them go. Strand tells Madison it’s because they think whatever is on land will kill them.
The group arrives on land and walks toward their destination. Along the way, they come across the church that we saw at the beginning of the episode. There are many dead bodies on the ground that have been impaled through the head. Strand recognizes Thomas’s truck, and runs to it, then inside the church looking for him. While the others wait outside, a horde of walkers, who were part of the church congregation, begin attacking them. The group picks up weapons and fights back. When a choir boy attacks Daniel, he freezes as he has a flashback to holding another little boy by the neck. Luckily, Ofelia steps in and stabs the choir boy walker in the head. A walker gets Madison on the ground, and Chris just stares. Alicia has to step in and save her mother.
After they kill all the walkers, Strand takes Thomas’s truck and drives them to their destination: a large gated compound behind walls, with livestock and fields of food growing. Celia welcomes their group. She asks Strand about Luis, who tells her that Luis is “one of them now.” A housekeeper tells the group to hand over their weapons. They all comply, except Daniel, until the housekeeper becomes more firm about it.
Celia takes Strand to see Thomas, who has been bitten on his arm, and is slowly dying. Strand apologizes, but Thomas tells him that it’s okay, and that he waited for Strand. Strand helps him into bed, and it is evident that Thomas is very weak.
As Alicia lays down on the couch and watches an old movie, Chris comes in to join her. She gets up to leave, and asks if she’s mad at him. She tells Chris she saw what he did – he was just going to stand there and watch as the walker killed Madison. Chris acts like he didn’t do anything. He warns Alicia not to tell anyone, and claims that he froze. Alicia asks what happens if she does tell someone, and Chris replies that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
Nick finds his way to the kitchen, where Celia gives him some posole. He then tells Celia that Luis was asking for her when he was dying and wanted him to tell her that she was on his mind. Nick also tells Celia that he’s sick of all the killing. Celia tells Nick that “our dead has always walked amongst us” but the only difference is that now they can see them. Madison walks in just then and comments that it’s a pretty big difference. She then tells Nick that he can go shower now. She then warns Celia that Nick is fragile.
Outside, Daniel looks at a bulletin board with pictures of the dead. He also notices an owl carved into a tree above it — which matches the symbol that was on the coin Luis wanted him to give to his mother. Celia walks up, and Daniel apologizes for her loss, as she places a picture of Luis on the board. However, Celia points out that Luis wasn’t shot in the head, so there’s nothing to be sorry for.
Madison goes to see Strand and Thomas, who are laying in bed. She leaves some food for them. Thomas apologizes for not being a better host. He asks Madison to promise him that he’ll look after Strand when he’s gone. Madison agrees.
Ofelia goes to get her father to join them for dinner, but she finds him just sitting on the bed, staring, and he says he’s not hungry. He tells her to tell the others that he’s tired.
Later that night, Madison finds Alicia laying on the couch watching another old movie on TV. Alicia tells Madison about Chris threatening her, so Madison goes to Travis and tells him what happened. She tries to convince Travis that Chris is sick and needs help. Travis tells Madison that he needs her, and they need to be a united front. Madison tells Travis that Alicia needs her to be with her tonight. Travis says he’ll go be with Chris.
Strand begs Thomas to let the world go, but Thomas cries and says he doesn’t want to leave him. Strand says that he could go with him. However, Thomas says he can’t let him. But Strand says there’s nothing left here for him once Thomas is gone. Thomas asks how it would work, and Strand replies that Celia will watch over them. Thomas asks how he’ll do it, but Strand tells Thomas to let him worry about that, then he kisses Thomas on the lips.
Meanwhile, outside, Daniel is out walking around and sees a boy drop a puppy down a chute that goes to the cellar.
Ofelia takes Nick to the bulletin board with the photos of the dead, and where there are also candles set up. Ofelia tells Nick that she needs to talk to her mother. She kneels down, and Nick does as well. She speaks out loud to her mother, telling her that she’s worried about her father. Nick looks up and sees the owl carving. He has flashback of when he was in the church and woke up to see walkers for the first time. Ofelia finishes praying, and thanks Nick for doing this with her.
Daniel follows the boy who dropped the puppy down the chute. He hears the boy talking to someone, and asks who he’s talking to. The boy says he’s talking to his mother, and Daniel asks him to introduce him. The boy lets him inside, and Daniel finds several walkers trapped behind bars, clawing to get out.
Daniel confronts Celia about his discovery. She explains that the walkers are family and were being hunted like monsters. She shows him a plate with two communion wafers. Daniel realizes that Celia poisoned the people at the church, and killed them. Celia corrects Daniel, saying he’s the one who killed them. She tells him that he needs to make peace with his Dead.
Celia tends to Thomas with a washcloth, and sings a song to him in Spanish. Celia tells Strand that she never thought he was good enough for Thomas, which Strand is aware. However, she says she’s proud of Strand for what he has decided to do, and says she was wrong about him. Strand looks at the communion wafers and asks how long it will take. She says not long, then tells him to sleep.
Nick goes to talk to Celia. She tells him that his mother was worried about him, and Nick tells her he’s given her reason to. He then asks Celia, “They’re not really dead, are they?” She smiles and says that they are not. He asks what they are then, and she says they are what comes next.
Strand lays in bed next to Thomas, holding his hand as Thomas dies. After Thomas dies, Strand walks toward the communion wafers… then walks past them.
Chris sneaks out of the room he is sleeping in with Travis and goes to the room where Madison and Alicia are sleeping in a bed together. He whispers Alicia’s name. When neither Madison or Alicia stir, he goes and picks up the knife that’s on the night stand. Just then, there’s a gun shot, which wakes up both Madison and Alicia, who see Chris standing there with a knife. They yell at him to get out, and he leaves.
It turns out that the gun shot was Strand shooting Thomas in the head through a pillow.
Her Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 6 of Fear the Walking Dead: Sicut Cervus
You may be wondering what “Sicut Cervus” means (or maybe it’s just me). According to this article, it is Latin and means “like a deer.” Further, it comes from a Bible verse that translates to: “As the deer long for the springs of water, so my soul longs for you, oh God.” So how does this title apply to the episode? Well, when I think of the word “deer” in a way that applies to a human, I think of the phrase “like a deer in the headlights,” which refers to a person freezing up, not knowing what to do when something happens, much like a deer not knowing what to do when they see the headlights of a car heading toward them. This could refer to Chris, who claims that that’s what happened to him when he saw Madison being attacked by the walker. This could also refer to the remaining residents of the world as a whole, not knowing what to do in the wake of this walker outbreak. One person who does not seem to be a deer in the headlights is Celia, who has her own agenda of protecting the walkers who were formerly family members and friends.
I was a little disappointed by the show using this storyline of a so-called safe haven ending up not being such a safe haven due to walkers being stored somewhere — which is the same storyline that we saw in The Walking Dead at Hershel’s farmhouse, where they kept walkers in the barn, believing they were still alive and could be cured. It just seems like a repeat.
The one thing that I did appreciate about this episode was the loving relationship that was evident between Strand and Thomas. I’m so glad that Strand came to his senses and didn’t kill himself and sentence himself to become a walker to be kept in Celia’s cellar. But now that Strand has shot Thomas in the head, Celia and the others that live at the compound are going to be pissed. This is not going to be pretty for Strand. But it could make for an exciting episode, as we head into the midseason finale.
His thoughts on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2 Episode 6: Sicut Cervus
I think this will come as a big surprise, but again, I was not really a fan of this episode. The one interesting bit is that this place felt like the Woodbury/Governor storyline from The Walking Dead, blended with that of Hershel’s farm. That could prove to be interesting I think. But we will have to see, and right now given how little faith I have in the show, I am not sure it could pull a good storyline off.
Strand’s story was certainly a pretty sad one, with getting back to his loved one, who is bitten, and basically on his deathbed. It certainly makes Strand seem a little more human than he has been in past episodes. What I am waiting for is Chris to be put down though! It looks like we might have a little serial killer in development, and he is really starting to freak me out. If I am Madison or Alicia, I am telling Travis that he needs to keep his son locked up, away from them. Something is broken inside him, and beyond repair, it looks like. I am always thinking about “what if” scenarios, and I think that Chris might have been a serial killer had this apocalypse not come down. The way he is acting is not something I feel springs up the way it is. It seems like something that was just waiting below the surface, for something to rattle it loose.
But Chris is not the only looney tunes one though. We have Daniel, who is hearing voices, and trying to keep it together, and Celia and Nick who seem to have some sort of bond now because they both believe that the walkers are not really dead. I am waiting for one of the two to give a walker a kiss, to see how alive they really are.
I guess scientifically, you could come up with an explanation that this new being is alive in a “new” way, but the person that was inhabiting that body is gone. I am not sure why people do not see that. I guess maybe under the stress of the situation, people have different coping mechanisms.
As for the walkers, it is pretty obvious they are going to escape, and cause mayhem. Not much to discuss there. If they don’t, it surely would be disappointing.
Scenes from the Next Episode of Fear the Walking Dead: Shiva
Preview for Season 2 Episode 7 of Fear the Walking Dead: Shiva
Magneto is my favorite.
So much bette than the first season