‘Fear the Walking Dead’: Trouble in Paradise for Dwight & Sherry (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead Season 6, Episode 5, “Honey.”]
Fear the Walking Dead has never been sure how much it wants to borrow from the main show.
For the first three seasons, it was largely a standalone venture. In Season 4, the Morgan (Lennie James) crossover happened, and then, in Season 5, former Savior Dwight (Austin Amelio) also arrived in Texas. But for all of the characters who just so happened to find each other again several states away, there was very little discussion of their shared past.
Surprisingly, that changes in “Honey.” The main conflict here is with Pioneers boss Virginia (Colby Minifie), but one man’s influence looms large over the events that unfold between Dwight and Sherry (Christine Evangelista): Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). It seems that the more the married pair try to push away their not-so-happy past, the more it comes back to them, leading to a surprisingly heartbreaking final minutes.
Lost and Found
Dwight and Sherry get about five minutes of happiness at the start of the episode before they’re abducted by mask-wearing baddies…or so it seems. Turns out, Sherry’s one of those baddies, who, despite the fact that they abducted Al (Maggie Grace), aren’t really bad at all. They’re people who’ve run away from Ginny, and they’re determined to take her out. The first step in that plan? Stealing Al’s SWAT van.
After a lengthy action sequence on horseback, they manage to wrestle the vehicle from the ranger driving it. Dwight isn’t able to pull the trigger on the driver (he rolls out onto the road) and, briefly, everyone’s concerned. Then, a smiling Morgan shows up with the unconscious driver in tow. “You lose something?” he says with a glint in his eye.
You Can Take the Man From the Saviors…
Unfortunately, that’s the rosiest things get between Morgan and Dwight. The masked people want to take down Ginny at any cost, and they’re not willing to wait to do it, even when Morgan urges caution so as not to endanger their friends still on the inside. Dwight jumps on their bandwagon, desperate to oust Ginny and have the life with Sherry that they always wanted. He’s so desperate, in fact, that he strays back toward his Savior side, using a hungry dog to torture the SWAT van driver, who doesn’t reveal anything about Ginny’s whereabouts, anyway. Morgan interrupts, and the interrogation ends.
So, a new plan is hatched. Dwight uses his radio to say they’ve found a settlement with hundreds of people, and that Ginny should come to talk to them (they want to lure her out and then use the SWAT van to kill her). Morgan and Al aren’t cool with that, so they start to steal explosives to blow up the van. But that plan blows up in their faces, as Dwight catches them red-handed and ushers them to the same holding area where the driver is being kept. Both enter without a fight, but then one of the masked men pulls a gun on Dwight. Sherry tells him to go inside, too, because she “can’t have him be a part of this.” She wants to make sure he can still be the man he was, rather than his Savior self — and the only way she sees that happening is to keep him away from the Ginny ambush.
As one might predict, Dwight is very much still a part of the Ginny ambush. He breaks free from the holding area and finds his way to Sherry as she’s stationed in the SWAT van, ready to pull the lever that’ll kill several of Ginny’s soldiers. The woman, herself, is not there. She’s ready to do it, and an argument ensues. “We can’t just let him keep doing this!” she exclaims, in what’s likely a reference to her former captor, Negan.
This is Who I Am
In the end, Dwight wins the fight, but he loses his wife. Sherry’s so enraged that he kept her from pulling the lever — and that he won’t see things her way — that she orders him to leave. “I need this,” she says. “There’s the truth. That’s who I am.” He goes, and on his way out, he frees the part-wolf, part-dog they were using to torture people. He’s a lone wolf once again.
As the episode ends, Morgan helps Dwight and Al give a couple of walkers a makeover, so they look like them and can fool Ginny’s rangers into thinking they died and turned. Then, the trio helps guide the folks from the apartment complex, who were holed up in the back of a truck, to the empty dam. Dwight, still holding out hope Sherry will return to him, draws an infinity symbol and an arrow on the truck.
Other Observations
- Another solid episode for Fear. I have no idea how this show is pulling this off, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. While I’ll always miss Madison (Kim Dickens) and Nick (Frank Dillane), it’s nice to be able to look forward to this show again.
- Anybody else wonder why, in the end, Team Morgan didn’t just kill the walkers and then put Al and Dwight’s clothes on them? They’re taking a risk in assuming those walkers don’t do what they’re known to do — walk — and Ginny’s rangers find them. Having them dead on the road isn’t suspicious, since a random stranger could’ve killed them. It seems like the plan could’ve been thought out a little better, or at least, someone could’ve articulated why they were choosing to keep the walkers alive.
- My only other “criticism” for this episode doesn’t have much to do with the episode itself, but… where is Luciana (Danay Garcia)? Since she’s now one of the characters who’s been with the show the longest, it feels odd to leave her out for five whole episodes. Maybe ranger Strand (Colman Domingo) sent Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) to her, and we’ll get the Luci-Alicia friendship that should’ve happened seasons ago.
- I knew when Dwight and Sherry got their episode, it wasn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows. What I loved about this is how it played off its “source material,” so to speak — Dwight and Sherry never really escaped Negan’s shadow, even though they went all the way to Texas in the attempt. There’s something chilling about that, and it’s a message Seasons 4 and 5 of this show never would’ve endeavored to send.
- So, now we know Sherry didn’t save Morgan, because she had no clue who he was. Dare I hope… maybe… it was Madison? I know, I know. Probably not. But Fear has been on such a hot streak lately, fixing many of its “wrongs” and appearing to listen to fan criticism, that part of me wonders whether we’ll see her again before the season’s end.
- Rating: 4.5/5. Another good installment in a half-season where each episode has been extremely watchable. Whatever changes Fear made behind the scenes, at least thus far, it appears they’re working.
Fear the Walking Dead, Sundays, AMC, 9/8c
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