June stages a one-woman war on PADRE Collectors, capturing them cutting their trigger fingers off and releasing them. She’s alone, and frighteningly successful, until she knocks out two Collectors transporting a child. They’re Dwight and Sherry and the child, Finch (Gavin Waren) is their son.

This is the sort of episode Fear The Walking Dead always does well, and this is one of the best examples of it. The cast is buttoned all the way down, to the extent that we’re alone with June for the first act. Jenna Elfman has always been a strong part of the cast but this is one of her best performances to date. What presents, at first, as a slightly stereotypical ‘grim hunter’ reboot for June is dissected and explored until we realize this is something very different. June has been pushed far past breaking before (this entire cast survived Texas being nuked after all) but this time there’s something primal about it. Her hostility, her clinical brutality is aimed outwards so it can’t be aimed inwards and the script tells us the answers before we know the questions. Her hatred of PADRE, her targeting of trigger fingers, the fact she knows where a train with an operating theatre is – all of this is anomalous until we realize it’s intentional.

Even the idea at the core of the episode is idealistic but curdled: using the radiation exposure that seems to have saved Alicia’s life as a cure for the Carrion plague. It’s a great idea and one that PADRE, in the form of Shrike (Maya Eshet) used as a means of human experimentation. They told themselves, we discover, they were looking for the cure and forcing June to do the science. June, a medical professional whose life is focused on saving others, turned into a functional war criminal. No  wonder she went to war with PADRE.

This horrific idea is explored from three different directions. We see June’s crushing guilt and horror. We see the consequences of it when Adrian (Jonathan Medina) discovers his daughter was one of the people experimented on, and we see the tiniest hints of hope as Dwight and Sherry are woken up to just what’s been going on.

Austin Amelio and Christine Evangelista have always been one of the best parts of the cast but this episode is a highlight for them too. There’s a moment, after they’ve realized what’s gone on, where they’re talking about why they’re uncomfortable. Dwight says ‘Sanctuary’ and they both flinch at the memory of their time held by Negan. Like Morgan, they sacrificed everything for what they thought was safety for their child and, like Morgan, they realize it’s a lie. There’s a fantastic moment where the three of them are, at last on the same page, ready to go and ready to wage war on PADRE and… that’s when everything collapses. Shrike’s arrival leads to one of the show’s most brutal moments as Finch, still suffering from appendicitis, is bitten by the severed, reanimated head of Adrian. Shrike does this to ‘motivate’ June but the image of Finch’s parents screaming for their child to wake up is one of the show’s bleakest. Finch is bitten, Dwight and Sherry can do nothing and June has no choice but to go back to work.

Verdict: This is grim stuff, even for this show but it’s played straight, handled well and hits hard. It also ties into what seems to be one of the big themes this year; making your peace with the past. A final scene with Morgan also revolves around this and I’m looking forward to seeing that, especially as I have a suspicion about what it is. That’s for the future though. For now this is a relentless episode full of great performances and some very dark, very handled moments. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart