Fear The Walking Dead: Is Daniel faking again to keep an eye on Strand?

Fear The Walking Dead is releasing the best episodes of the series. The back half of season six is hands down the best storylines so far. We’ve had shocking deaths and now a twist in the story that has us waiting to see what will come next.

In 610 “Handle With Care,” we see Daniel in the jail cell talking to an unseen person about a situation that has arisen. As he tells the story, we see it being played out in a flashback.  What we find out is that Daniel’s memory is relapsing, for real. He was faking earlier in the season when he acted like he didn’t remember anyone.

Currently, we have multiple fractions of people trying to find their footing while a threat looms over all of them. Morgan’s group at his Utopia, Strand and his Rangers and Sherry and the Outcasts.  The group that is a threat looks to be the graffiti artists who spray paint their slogan “The End is the Beginning” everywhere.

The theory is that this threat must have some presence in some if not all, of the groups as things keep happening that can’t be explained. In the most recent episode, we find out that Daniel is responsible for some of the events he has no recollection of.

Would Daniel really pull another fake memory lapse to spy on Strand?

Daniel’s recent episode of memory loss does seem to be genuine. But, everyone was deceived when he tried this before. Would he risk faking it again to spy on Strand and his rangers?

I think he would. He knows something is going on, and to keep people safe; they need to find out what. When he said he would be going off on his own, he knew Strand was already feeling guilt for shooting him in the face. Strand wouldn’t let him go off to unknown dangers in his current state of mind.

Ruben Blades stated the following in a Q&A with AMC:

"I think Daniel has always acknowledged Strand’s abilities and considers him a dangerous adversary, for he knows that Strand lacks moral constraints, just like him. Daniel admires the skills Strand possesses, but he doesn’t trust him at all because he knows that, no matter what Strand does or says, there’s always a motive, an ulterior motive, and that’s him, his interest. And he can relate to that because, again, he can recognize it because Strand in a way reflects also part of who Daniel is. He respects Strand, just like you would respect a predator, a predator’s ability to hunt, but he doesn’t trust him for the same reason, because he knows that, or he thinks that, Strand is basically a predator and Strand will do whatever he feels is needed, including killing Daniel if necessary, so Daniel doesn’t trust him at all."

Those comments do not prove anything as far as my theory goes, but this is exactly why I think Daniel would do something like fake his memory loss, again. Who would believe that he would be faking again? This time he did some things that could have gotten someone killed. It would be quite risky to take things to this extreme, but Daniel will do what he has to do to keep people safe.

What do you think? Is Daniel really experiencing this memory loss?

Fear The Walking Dead returns to AMC with a new episode Sunday, May 2.

AMC+ members will be able to stream the new episode Thursday, April 29.