Spoilers below for the Fear the Walking Dead midseason finale, so be warned!
For the first 35 minutes of its Season 6 mid-year finale, Fear the Walking Dead delivered a super-chilling standalone premise in which Alycia Debnam-Carey's Alicia and Zoe Colletti's Dakota (and Alexa Nisenson's Charlie, to an extent) were trapped in a hunting lodge with a socially functioning lunatic taxidermist. That situation resulted in one of the spinoff's coolest-looking walker attacks yet (which factored in lots of antlers), setting up a gear-shift that brought Morgan, Strand and others into the narrative mix. Oh yeah, and we finally learned what happened to Karen David's long-lost Grace!
Bizarrely enough, this was the first episode of Season 6 in which Alicia and Lennie James' Morgan crossed paths, as she was totally unaware that he survived the wounds he suffered in the Season 5 finale. (It was extremely coincidental that everyone happened upon that hunting lodge, but that's neither here nor there.) It was perfect timing on one hand, with Morgan able to tell Alicia about his new hideaway where Maggie Grace's Al and Austin Amelio's Dwight are currently holed up. But Strand's arrival was less timely, and led to a brief standoff, since he did not want to stray from his original plan. Then, in the final scene, viewers learned about Grace's whereabouts and Virginia's newest plan, so let's dive into those topics.
What Happened To Grace?
Technically, "Damage from the Inside" didn't detail everything that Grace experienced after fans last saw her in Season 5. However, we do know that she has been held captive by Colby Minifie's Virginia for an undetermined amount of time. It's clear that Virginia is treating Grace less harshly than she would other prisoners, considering the latter has a comfortable-looking bed and a book to read, but that's not the only difference here.
Grace's cell, so to speak, is not set up in any kind of a public jailhouse, and is instead quite hidden. One has to go through a locked and guarded fence gate, and then has to find the actual door, which was blocked by a large set of shelves. Keeping mum about Grace's whereabouts was apparently quite important to Virginia, who has been keeping the pregnant woman around as her big secret weapon to use against Morgan if the time ever came. And the time has most definitely arrived.
It's unknown if Grace has had any other roles in Virginia's communities, but it's highly unlikely, since news of her presence would spread around and eventually reach Morgan's ears. It's also unknown if Grace was involved with saving Morgan's life after he was shot, but that also seems unlikely given what transpired with Morgan in the Season 6 premiere. But we can presumably expect more answers to come when new episode arrive in 2021.
What Is Virginia's New Plan?
Rarely has a Fear the Walking Dead character been more uncomfortable than Strand was when he had to tell Virginia that her sister Dakota sided with Alicia and Morgan. Once she made sure Strand was on her side – though he technically isn't, it's still unclear when he will decide to break away from her influence – Virginia made the next step in her big plan quite clear: Strand needs to round up all the Gulch traitors and bring them back to her.
Virginia's choice of action will be interesting to watch when Fear the Walking Dead returns, considering part of her anger is invested in her own sister Dakota opting to double-cross her in favor of the other survivors. (Dakota's decision was of course influenced by Virginia having killed their parents, though we have yet to learn major details about that part of the villain's backstory.) So Virginia will no doubt want to redirect that anger against Morgan and the rest, even though she already hates Morgan as much as she possibly can. Is it possible she will succeed in killing him off before Season 7 gets here?
Probably not, considering it was hinted at in the episode that Alicia and others are willing to work with the spray-paint group (and presumably any other Virginia-opposing groups) as a way to strike at Virginia. If Morgan, Dakota and others are able to team up with those remaining group members to form a larger offensive, that could do a lot more damage to the antagonists than Strand's "take them down from within" plan. Of course, there are no guarantees that everyone will get along very well, and I'm willing to bet there will be several more large-scale conflicts to come.
For now, Fear the Walking Dead has wrapped up the first half of Season 6, while AMC will spend its post-Thanksgiving weekend airing the two-part season finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond on Sunday, November 29, at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see what new and returning shows are on the way during FTWD's hiatus, head to our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule and our 2021 Winter and Spring premiere guide.
