Fear the Walking Dead: The Filthy Woman is the scariest villain of all

We’ve seen some intense villains in the world of The Walking Dead, but Fear the Walking Dead’s Filthy Woman really takes the taco.

There are some villains who rise to power by accident and there are others who climb their way to the top, kicking anyone and everyone out of their way to attain power. And then there’s Martha. The Fear the Walking Dead villain made a case for the most terrifying villain simply because she was so evil and conniving that she’d give Negan and the Governor a run for their money.

Though the Governor kept heads in aquariums and Negan enjoyed bashing heads with baseball bats, both villains had people to do most of their dirty work for them. Gareth and the Termites ate people and that isn’t cool, but again, it took a village of cannibals to run that kind of operation. When it comes to single-handed terrorism on a large scale, the Filthy Woman beats everyone hands down.

While Negan and the Governor rattle cages and shake their bats, Martha is quietly setting out to kill everyone via the water supply. The incident with the SWAT van was more like a warning. If she wanted them dead she would have kept shooting and finished the job at that point. Like a cat with its mouse, she wanted to play with Morgan until she finished him off. And play she did.

So what makes Martha so terrifying? The answer is fairly simple: She’s bat-poop crazy. Homicidal one moment and terrifyingly meek in the next. She manipulated Morgan the entire time and he has no idea why. Why did she choose him? What was she after? What was her endgame? Was it all part of her own game to inflict pain on everyone around her because of the loss she suffered?

The Filthy Woman lands at the top of the list because you’d have to be crazy to poison pallets of water. She systematically opened each bottle on the pallet and then made it look like they has been untouched. Morgan spotted her putting something in the water on the side of the road, but he was too preoccupied to stop and think about it. It’s crazy to think that Martha not only poisoned all of the water, but she packed it all back up and made it look like it hadn’t been touched. Before we knew what she was getting at, she was putting her plan into motion from the start. That’s dedication.

Most villains we have seen so far demonstrate some kind of methodology, but Martha’s plan was particularly insidious because she was unpredictable. And when you can’t get inside a villain’s head, watch out.