Fear the Walking Dead Shines a Spotlight On the Last Surviving Clark
This week's Fear the Walking Dead sees Alicia stuck riding out the storm with the teen who's responsible for the death of Madison and Nick.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for this week's episode of Fear the Walking Dead, "Close Your Eyes," which debuted Sunday on AMC.
In Fear the Walking Dead's “Close Your Eyes,” the storm that splintered the group further in last week’s “People Like Us” strands Alicia Clark in a house with the tween she holds responsible for the deaths of her mother and brother. Charlie ran away from June and John’s bus, first to return Madison’s copy of The Little Prince and then to parts unknown after Luciana chases her out of the mansion she and Strand have made their haven. As luck would have it, she finds her way to the same walker-ridden home Alicia finds at the beginning of “Close Your Eyes,” and so begins the hotly anticipated standalone episode starring Alycia Debnam-Carey and Alexa Nisenson.
Over the course of the hour, Alicia wrestles with the conflicting desires to punish Charlie and to keep some part of her mother alive by embracing Madison’s belief that everyone is redeemable. Even Madison’s ghost wouldn’t seek vengeance on the orphan who, while guilty of murder, clearly has no idea how to be in the midst of an apocalypse that has transformed fully grown, formerly sane people into monsters more nightmarish than the walkers themselves.
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The episode rests squarely on the shoulders of the only remaining Clark, not to mention the only remaining character from the pilot, and that burden serves as an apt metaphor for Alicia’s struggle now that she’s utterly alone. Her mother died an idealist, but Madison’s loss unfortunately serves as irrefutable proof that idealism is cold comfort when it never manifests into anything tangible. In this house alone with Charlie and multiple opportunities to exact revenge, Alicia has to decide for herself what kind of person she’s going to be, and practically pulls herself in two trying.
Alycia Debnam-Carey masterfully plays out this internal conflict with every strike of a match, hammer of a nail and clench of a fist. Her frustration is palpable, as is Charlie’s terror in response. The most frightening thing about “Close Your Eyes” isn’t the walkers banging against the windows or the rapidly flooding basement threatening to drown them, but the possibility that Alicia will give in to her rage and grief, and murder a child.
Alexandra is a Los Angeles-based writer/comedian. Her pop culture obsessions include, but are not limited to, Game of Thrones, Kate Mulgrew, Preacher, Star Trek, Tyler Perry movies, Bryan Fuller, and the Oxford Comma.
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