The National Guard never really seemed like the good guys on Fear The Walking Dead,but Sunday's episode of the AMC spinoff solidified all of our worst fears. They aren't just bullies who mocked Travis for not wanting to shoot a walker. Using a protocol known as "Cobalt" on Fear The Walking Dead, the soldiers are planning on killing everybody and going on their way.
It all started when Madison came downstairs to discover that Ofelia and Daniel Salazar had captured one of the National Guard soldiers and was holding him hostage for information about Griselda's location in the basement. (This was the same solider who was having a fling with the Salazar daughter and finding medicine for her mother in the previous episode.) Using razor blades as forceful persuasion, Daniel asked him about "cobalt," a word used by the soldiers a lot in their radio transmissions. What is cobalt? It's the command code to initiate an evacuation from the LA base after "humane termination" of everyone there.
The soldier told them about how fast people were turning, and how they couldn't tell the infected from the living and hoarded them into an arena. Apparently, this isn't the first mass killing that National Guard was responsible for in the apocalypse. At the end of the episode, Daniel visited the arena and saw the chained doors bulging with walkers (or "the infected" as they're called on this show) trying to escape. Any fan of The Walking Dead knows that it's only a matter of time before they get out.
Through this subplot, we learned a little bit more about Papa Salazar. In his war torn past, he has both tortured people before and been tortured before. In his experience it's necessary for survival. The best part? Madison is totally on his side. She's turning out to be quite the morally grey hero and I love it. Meanwhile, Alicia and Chris were living out some kind of twisted Cruel Intentions/John Hughes fantasy by playing dress up and then smashing a rich person's home. On their way home, they saw the soldiers beginning their evacuation. "Cobalt" is coming and it's going to leave everyone a little more than blue.
Image: Justina Mintz/AMC
