Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 6
What’s there to say really about this week’s Fear the Walking Dead? After a solid series of episodes that came with last week’s “Honey,” season 6 completely confront plants with”Bury Her alongside Jasper’s Leg.” If I had been John Dorie, I would cut and run back to a lakeside cabin, also. But it didn’t need to be this way.
There are a couple of things that work in this episode’s favor. Garret Dillahunt is quite good, as always. I felt John’s pain as he confessed his anxieties to June (Jenna Elfman). If he wants to cut and run, he must have a damn good reason for risking everything to abandon his or her pals. He has their escape all mapped out says how desperately he has to be free of Ginny. I also enjoyed the irony of June being the one who doesn’t need to leave. To her mind, how can she save lives if she bails? Fair enough, I suppose. June is currently feeling low after having a patient in the field–to acute appendicitis of all things.
Still, the fact that John must beg June to run off with him questions why June just does not trust his reason for leaving. If she trusts and loves him, that should be sufficient, right? It’s not until John tells her she would be saving him by joining him June finally knows his survival hinges on his or her escape. However, their plans are placed on hold if Ginny handily dispatches both of these to Tank Town, in which a catastrophic injury has hurt dozens of workers and jeopardizes the settlements’ crucial gas supply. Calling at a field medic to help the wounded is straightforward enough, even if June and her modest resources are being stretched too thin. After all, there’s just so much she can do with a makeshift mobile hospital but she is prepared to perform her very best.
Things only get complicated once Ginny herself shows up at Tank Town to survey the damage. Unlike June, her main concern is salvaging gear, not saving lives. She is quick to accuse Luciana of undermining –until she sees THE END IS THE BEGINNING spray-painted on a tower. Suddenly, what is meant to be a rescue mission turns to an interrogation as workers lay dying or injured. Wes is among those in need of immediate medical attention, but Ginny is having none of it.
This is another thing about”Jasper’s Leg” which works, Ginny and June working at cross-purposes as Tank Town burns around them. As a former trauma nurse, June is guaranteed to do no injury. However, Ginny needs answers, and that she believes Wes is part of the meddlesome set of Enders. She is willing to prolong his anguish for him to confess to something he is not guilty of. We have certainly seen this sort of situation play out repeatedly in the real world, and it’s quite a frightening moment here in”Jasper’s Leg.” Luckily for Wes, June can not stand idly by as he needlessly suffers Ginny’s taunts.
Yet the way Ginny justifies her interrogation to June is nearly ridiculous: “I never let anybody die without any reason” Which, frankly, is pretty absurd on the face of it, especially when you consider that such a game-changing confession falls upon deaf ears.
Once an explosion rips through Tank Town, Ginny is bitten on the hand with a walker. This marks a major turning point for this season. Finally, there is a way to take Ginny out without raising suspicion among her faithful rangers. So when Ginny beseeches June to amputate her hand to save her, you expect June will do the perfect thing. It’s here that the incident requires a turn for the worse when June saves Ginny’s life.
June understands Ginny isn’t a good man –she’s seen firsthand how she treats Tank Town’s employees as expendable resources. And she sees it in the way she tortures Wes. June also sees exactly what is one of Ginny’s rangers has done to poor John. And June nevertheless allows Ginny’s sob story about her sister to blur her judgment. This is not just a potentially fatal mistake for the settlements under Ginny’s rule, it is a significant misstep for Stress itself.
An individual could argue Stress would not kill off its large bad so ancient, and you would be right. However, on the other hand, why present such a decision if her passing is never actually about the desk? Because what this succeeds in doing is turning the crowd from June. Worse still, Fear doubles down June’s poor judgment using a critical bargaining chip to eventually get her hospital funded. This would seem like a noble cause until you believe June’s primary motivation is to save lives. Doesn’t it stand to reason that taking Ginny out will save far more lives than the usual hospital could in the long run?
But what’s most egregious to me personally is that by choosing the hospital, she is choosing to stay. And by staying, she’s completely ignoring how John’s survival hinges on their escape. Frankly, if Fear is indeed keen to take itself in the foot, so I could barely mount a fair defense for why anyone should see past these faulty narrative decisions. So perhaps it is for the best that AMC is wrapping up the first half of the year an incident early. Yes, because of the pandemic, we are just getting seven episodes for now, with next week’s”Damage from the Inside” serving as the mid-season finale. (And yes, I understand the potential irony of incident 7’s name )
Just to be clear, my issue with”Jasper’s Leg” isn’t with the acting, as Jenna Elfman brings a lot of depth to what is otherwise a thankless role. But due to this episode, she’s been cast in an unflattering light that may prove hard to overcome. Frankly, while I have rooted for June and John to be collectively (and remain collectively ), “Jasper’s Leg” left me hoping for him to follow along with his plan. Within an hour full of questionable decisions, leaving June behind certainly wasn’t one of them.
