Warning: This story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Ophelia” episode of Fear the Walking Dead. “People suck.” That’s the thought when Daniel Salazar’s (Ruben Blades) worsening mental state endangers Luciana (Danay Garcia) and Wes (Colby Hollman) in “Ofelia.” As Morgan (Lennie James) leads the submarine group on a mission to retrieve a cache of weapons they’ll need to get into the Strand Tower, he entrusts Luciana to continue working with Daniel and his memory loss caused by PTSD. If they’re going to take the Tower from Victor Strand (Colman Domingo), Morgan says, they’ll need Daniel’s sharp mind to outsmart his old enemy.
When a confused Daniel walks away from the submarine in search of his dead daughter, Ofelia Salazar (Mercedes Mason), the trio of Daniel, Luciana and Wes are captured by the Stalkers: Teddy’s (John Glover) true believers are now following Arno. (Spenser Granese).
In a boat graveyard swamped with walkers, Arno tries to get the coordinates to the weapons cache by hanging a caged Wes over a horde of zombies. Daniel mistakes an old ship for the Abigail and thinks his daughter is being held prisoner aboard the yacht. Arno agrees to free Wes and Ofelia if Daniel reveals the location of the weapons.
After sending the Stalkers 20 miles to the wrong coordinates, Daniel kills guard Sage (Jacob Kyle Young) and feeds Arno to the walkers for lying about Ophelia. Luciana tells the surviving Stalkers that they will have a fresh start if they join forces to fight Strand and take the Tower from him.
Wes tells Luciana that he can’t keep what he promised to Arno’s followers, but that they have a secret weapon: “Someone who knows what Victor is thinking before he does.” Because Ofelia gives Daniel clarity and focus, Luciana lies and tells Daniel that Arno revealed that Ofelia is alive at Strand’s Tower.
Lying is the final straw for Wes, who recalls a saying shared with his brother Derek (Chinaza Uche): “‘People are people.’ It means people suck.”
Wes lost faith in people because of the failures of leaders Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Strand and Morgan, but Luciana’s work with Daniel “made me want to believe that people weren’t always people.” And she then manipulated Daniel with a lie that threatened to break his fragile mind forever.
“What you just did is proof that you’re no better than the rest of us,” says Wes. “I can’t be around someone who’s pretending to be something they’re not.”
After Luciana and Daniel return to the sub with Arno’s former followers, Wes appears in the call box outside Strand’s Tower to strike a deal: “I can help save your Tower.”
“When Luciana makes the decision to lie to Daniel, it really is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s what makes Wes go, ‘Wait a second, everything everyone’s been telling me…’ now he thinks everything It’s just hypocritical lies,” showrunner Andrew Chambliss explained on AMC+’s Fear the Walking Dead: Episode Insider. “Essentially it’s in this place where he’s like, ‘You know what, I’ve had enough of this. I’d rather be with someone who at least owns what he does.’ And ultimately that leads to the phone booth.”
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