Fear The Walking Dead Season Seven: Who’s The Worst?

Fear the Walking Dead – Arno

In the first episode of season 7 of Fear TWD, we were introduced to the Stalkers, a mysterious group of radiation suit-clad weirdos who were not happy to see other people. They attacked everyone they seemed to come across and carted around a collection of walkers everywhere they went.

In episode 707, “The Portrait,” we were formally introduced to their leader, a fairly soft-spoken but menacing young carpenter by the name of Arnold (Spence Granese), who lamented how his friends “used to call him Arno”. As we would learn, the friends he spoke of were his fellow followers of the aforementioned Teddy Maddox, cultists who died in the wasteland in search of a long-dead senator Alicia Clark had hoped could lead them to the government safe-haven of P.A.D.R.E..

Since then, Arno and his remaining cultist friends searched the wasteland for Alicia, hoping to punish her for sending their friends on a fool’s errand of searching for the walker of Senator Vasquez. They attacked everyone else because, through recognition or hearing them calling out Alicia and Morgan over the radio, they deduced their connection to their former leader and sought to punish her by attacking them.

After introducing himself, Arno attempted to force his way into Strand’s tower on behalf of his friends by catapulting radioactive walkers at it.

He ultimately failed, but he never gave up his pursuit of Alicia, constantly dogging her, eventually chasing her to the home of a deaf musician named Paul. When Paul stopped Arno from feeding Alicia to his zombified cohorts, Arno finally responded by murdering Paul in cold blood.

I suppose none of this should surprise me. Above all else, Arno was a follower of Teddy Maddox. He wasn’t among the new recruits Teddy left behind for Alicia, he was a deep believer in his deranged mentor’s philosophy, and showed it in his callous treatment of those who got in his way. One last shadow left behind in the monster’s wake.