Fear The Walking Dead Theory: Strand And The Crater
By Liam O'Leary
In the most recent episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “Mourning Cloak,” the Stalkers asked an important question: Why is Strand sending people to the nuclear crater?
Over the last couple of episodes of Fear The Walking Dead, we’ve seen and heard about an ominous threat looming at the legit center of the wasteland: The Crater. The very spot where the nuclear warhead fell.
At the end of the midseason premiere, “Follow Me,” we saw Arno and Sage discover the crater. There was a massive herd of walkers within the crater, soaking up radioactivity every second they spent there.
In last Sunday’s episode, as Ali waited outside for Charlie to retrieve the elevator parts the Tower needed, he was set upon by a team of Stalkers. Interestingly, one of the first questions they asked the teen was, “Why is Strand sending people to the crater?”
It’s a good question. Why would Strand send people to the most irradiated place in the world? Simply being near it would be dangerous, so why risk sending precious troops there?
Fear The Walking Dead Theory
Strand is amassing an army of radioactive walkers.
In last Sunday’s episode, Strand was noticeably absent, leaving his right-hand man Howard in charge while he was off on a mission; I believe this was that mission.
If you recall, back in the seventh episode of the season, “The Portrait,” the Tower came under attack by Arno and the Stalkers, who used a trebuchet to launch walkers stuffed with radioactive Cesium into the Tower to try to force Strand to allow them to live there, but were ultimately thwarted.
At the end of the first half of this season, Alicia, after almost acquiescing to Strand’s request to join him at the Tower, discovered the broken and crippled walker of her friend, Will, and, realizing Strand killed him, declared war, vowing to take the Tower from her former friend.
After it became clear to Strand that he couldn’t reason with Alicia, he thought of ways that he could conduct his end of the war, preferably without having to waste ammo or live with having to kill Alicia directly suddenly remembered Arno’s siege.
Knowing how dangerous the radioactive walkers had been in and around the nuclear plant and aboard the Pennsylvania, as well as the ones Arno had launched at the Tower not that long ago, he decided to copy the Stalker leader’s strategy and use a legion of walking weapons to do his dirty work. He’d have to either transport or lead a large enough portion of the herd out of the crater and to the Pennsylvania and use their radioactive properties to slowly kill Morgan’s group and never have to see or think about them ever again.
It seems like a giant leap, even for Strand, and I honestly doubt he’d be able to condemn Alicia to that fate without eventually regretting it. I also think that Strand values his leadership role at the Tower and the glory he believes will ultimately bring him so much that he’s willing, at least at the moment, to risk that possibility to hang on to them.
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But, what do you think? Do you think Strand wants to use an army of radioactive walkers to defeat Alicia and Morgan? Do you think that’s why he was away from the Tower and had people poking around the crater? Or do you think he’s simply trying to create a barrier to keep the walkers already there? Let me know! I’m curious! And, if you enjoyed this and want to learn how to stay alive in a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!