Some of Fear The Walking Dead’s strongest episodes had an Alicia involvement. In fact, this is one of the episodes that proves that Alicia is not to be messed with at all.
“The Holding” tells the story of what happened when Alicia, Wes, Al, and Luciana meet the mysterious group that was teased since earlier in the season. They learn that the group is a wicked cult that are going to live the rest of their lives underground. Their leader is Teddy (played by John Glover) and he gives me serious David Koresh vibes.
Alicia is not the only central focus of the episode. Wes reunited with his brother that was thought to be dead. But if we learned something from that “Scars” episode of The Walking Dead, it is that the people you knew back then are not the same when you see them again. Wes’ brother is fully committed into the lifestyle of the cult.
Wes learned from the paintings that his brother painted that he and the group were involved in the recent attacks of the group. It all came crashing down later in the episode when Wes had no choice but to put his brother down and I felt for the character since I have a brother myself.
Colby Hollman had a strong performance on this episode of Fear The Walking Dead as I felt more attached to the Wes character more now than ever before. It seemed like he really channeled in his inner self from the actor to the character with his believable performance.
I also want to bring up the other subplots as Teddy wants Alicia to join him in whatever scheme he has cooking up. That is, if Teddy knows about Madison. Al is now aware that this group has a connection with CRM due to her finding one of their map coordinates and location markers. They even embalmed one of the CRM soldiers as well. Speaking of which, that scene was spooky!
The connection to CRM makes sense. There’s no chance the cult could have grown all of that food using only walkers as fertilizer. People had to be exchanged for food and equipment. That is my hypothesis. Another thing that didn’t make sense was how Alicia and the rest got there in the first place.
With these developments along with Alicia killing one of their members in brutal fashion, “The Holding” is a strong episode and a sleeper hit for this season.
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