#either the summoning does nothing and John is baffled

[vm-haunts]

Danny: Clocky says it'll happen when it happens, so it's actually vacation time for me :D

JLD: oh no his curse must have gives him really bad luck, since he's caught up in our mess this often.

...

Well technically Shadow did mark Danny as a prank, but that happened 3 months ago and Shadow's bad luck have nothing to do with him caught by another cult.

Oh right, the cult.

Now Danny is pretty much unfazed by the messes happening around him. Not his circus not his monkeys you know? Danny is on vacation as far as he's concerned, plus there's already people taking care of it, so he doesn't even have to worry about anything at all. People like that trenchcoat guy sneaking in behind the cultist. It's the fifth time in two months that they met each other, what an coincidence.

He could do without the rope around his wrists and ankles tho, it's really itchy and uncomfortable. But it's not a big deal really, the summoning wouldn't work anyway, since the Ghost King that they want is already inside the summoning circle. Which is pretty hilarious now that Danny think about it.

Although, where did these fruitloops even got his summoning circle? Perhaps he should do something about it after all.

...

John is torn.

On one hand, the cursed kid is bound in the middle of a summoning circle, one that is calling for the King of the Infinite. Which would be bad news if it successes, and so far John hadn't found a reason for it to not. Damn this cult really did their homework, hate when that happens.

On the other hand though... John is pretty sure the probably-not-a-kid knows something that he doesn't. For one, they visibly relaxed after checking the sigils around them. Might have laughed even, although it's hard to tell through the cloth gag. And secondly, did they just look right at John's corner and winked?

So John is torn. He should stop the summoning, in fact he should have already done so five minutes ago when the chanting starts. But John is also tempted to see what'll happen if he didn't.

Now normally John wouldn't have risked something like that, not for such a flimsy reason that amounts to morbid curiosity.

But.

Despite the lack of information on who the King really is, at least John knows the current one should be relatively benevolent. It'll be bad news if the King were summoned, they're still an Ancient, but it won't be Bad bad news.

Not to mention the unchanging amusement on the kid's face even as the chanting nears it's end. For someone to carry around so many Mark of Ancients and still be alive and kicking, the mystery kid clearly knows their way around the source of their curses. And if they aren't panicking, well.

All that to say, John is gonna let this one run it's course. Fingers crossed it wouldn't blow up in his face.

King of Curses

So Danny finally got on JLD's radar, but not because of summoning, or ghost attacks, or anything like that.

No, he got noticed by pure accident, walking on the streets.

Why? Well it might have something to do with the baker's dozen of Ancients level curses wafting off of him.

Seriously this guy should not be remotely alive and kicking, what the fuck? Nocturne's mark alone would have sent him into unwaking slumber why is he up and around buying groceries???

...

In other words, Danny traded a bunch of claims with his ghostly friends and foes, intentionally or otherwise. Some of those are good natured, some not quite. But at the worse those just cause minor inconveniences. To him, that is.

Our beloved ghost boy might have failed to realize the ghosts are actually eldritch gods to the rest of the world... And he is half of one too.

[letoasai]

dp x dc 2

A what if... 

If Danny was originally a ghost child, born from one of the seven ancients that sealed Pariah Dark. In an unfortunate accident, he was caught by the Fentons and experimented on. In a twist of strange fate, he was turned human, and basically given life. Because he was no longer a ghost, they decided to adopt him.

 Danny had no memory of his earliest years, or the experiments done on him but Jazz does and she quietly took better care of her brother than their parents did of either of them. At fourteen, he still dies and becomes a half ghost, partially because of his heritage kicking in. He still defeats Pariah Dark and becomes the Ghost King and the only one that knows his original identity is Clockwork who didn’t figure it out himself until Danny became a halfa. His human self being untraceable for them.

Danny is sixteen when he tells his parents about himself, oddly enough against Jazz’s advice. They didn't take it well and were ready to put him back on the table to experiment on him a second time to ‘fix him’ again.

It was Jazz that ended up sabotaging everything and grabbing her brother to run. She’d been packed and ready to go, expecting Jack and Maddie’s overreaction. Jazz finally tells him about the hazy memories she can recall about his arrival. Being only two years older than him, she was just a child but she remembered enough on top of their neglected childhood to decide to bail with him.

Clockwork was the one to give them their destination. Head to Gotham, where Danny could meet his mother, Lady Gotham, who is eagerly awaiting and preparing for his arrival. ~ ~ Batman did not like being summoned for meetings, he especially didn’t like being summoned for a meeting in his own batcave. That was his own space being infringed upon and he didn’t like it one bit. Meetings were for mutual areas unless it was called by one of his own children. Even then, those meetings were usually at the dinner table.

Constantine contacting him to have an ‘urgent chat’ was the last thing he wanted. Constantine usually avoided work when he could, and anything he would bring to the table meant trouble was on its way.

He’d had enough apocalyptic chaos for one month. It was only worse that Constantine insisted they meet tonight instead of the League meeting at the end of the week. Things that couldn’t wait meant more work for him.

Batman’s eyes narrowed at the sound of footsteps moving through the west side of the batcave. Even knowing it was coming, he was unhappy knowing that Constantine used the private door that only a few knew about to get inside.

“You’re early. That’s unheard of.” Batman commented, smelling the smoke of the man’s cigarette before even turning around. “Put that out.”

“Don’t think i will.” Constantine said, a hint of stress in his voice. “I dunno what you did but i don’t appreciate being dragged into it.”

“What i did?” Batman frowned, turning away from his computer to stand. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re the one that wanted to talk.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Constantine said, inhaling. His free hand held another cigarette that he likely planned to light when the first was gone. “Someone wants to speak to you. You’re going to speak to them.”

“Tch.” Batman crossed his arms. It wasn’t a wonder to him why his children were so stubborn. He could see himself in many of their habits. “Am i?”

Constantine shrugged. “Yeah, i think you are. They’re your bloody benefactor so i really don’t think you got a choice. I’m just a middle man.”

“Benefactor?” Batman scowled, a list of possible names running through his mind but nothing held. Something that required Constantine’s presence was even more baffling. “What are you talking about?”

The atmosphere in the cave suddenly changed. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but given the way Constantine tensed, they both felt it. It was like a wave of something spread out through the room, brushing against both of them and moving out to fill the rest of the corner.

“John, who did you invite here?”

“Oh, i don’t think i could do something like that. Way above my pay grade.” Constantine muttered, turning to face the same direction he’d just come from. There was no noise, no footsteps, nothing to indicate an intruder other than the feeling filling every inch of the batcave. “May i present to you, the spirit of Gotham herself. Lady Gotham.”

For a long few seconds nothing happened. It wasn’t an overly timely introduction but a woman did appear. She moved fluidly, silently, disappearing and reappearing between every step. She looked to be made of stone, everything from the visible skin of her legs and bare feet, to her cloak. She could have been a fixture somewhere in the city, a beautiful gargoyle but she moved with complete ease.

The hood of her cloak was drawn low, a veil covering her face. Even making her way through the moderately lit cave, she was nearly shrouded in shadows still. The most visible feature she had were bright, toxic green eyes that almost seemed to swirl.

Sharp horns protruded through her hood that wrapped behind her head and at her elbows were a small set of stone wings that must have been useless but she gave no indication one way or the other. Not even when they seemed to flutter.

“Lady Gotham?” Batman blinked, trying to absorb what he was seeing. To commit everything to memory. Her appearance should have given away so much but instead he got nothing.

“Yes. She is who this city was named for. She is this city’s soul. Powerful, old, and the beginning of… well a lot.” Constantine muttered. “She apparently likes your ragtag team of bats and birds too.”

“Protectors…” She spoke, her voice was like a whisper, but there was an edge to it that made it seem like her speaking at a normal volume would be a very bad thing. “Protectors are always welcome here.”

Batman stared and didn’t know right off what he was supposed to say. He didn’t feel like he was in danger, but he had no idea what a supposed spirit would want with him. He’d been playing his role as batman for years without a trace of this Lady Gotham before.

Constantine cleared his throat. “Well since that introduction was made, i’ll see myself ou-”

“Stay.” she said, stopping only a few few away from them. She still blinked in and out of existence. Sometimes pieces of her would be visible while the rest of her faded in and out.

“Yes…” Constantine reluctantly muttered.

Batman straightened. “Never heard of you.” Constantine nearly groaned. “But i can’t refute what’s right before me. What can i help you with?”

She tilted her head, and the motion should have been impossible if she were actually made of stone. He got the impression that she was amused despite not really being able to see her face.

“Protector. Knight. Hero. Father. You have assumed so many mantles.” Gotham spoke softly. “There is only so much i can do, i do interfere when i can.”

He nodded though he had no idea what she was talking about. He’d always pulled his own weight but if there was an otherworldly entity assisting him, would he know?

“I come to you, to ask for a favor. You, with the means to grant such a thing.”

“What sort of favor?”

“A halfa has been directed to my core with his human sister. They require living arrangements.” She spoke firmly. “I can offer them my love, my welcome, my embrace, even a taste of my power but monetary needs and documents are out of my hands.”

“A halfa?” Batman frowned, not understanding the phrase other than them not being human if their sister being human was clarified.

“Nooo…” Constantine stared, looking like he’d prefer it if the floor just opened up and swallowed him. “Not the halfa that defeated Pariah Dark...”

“The very same.” Gotham clasped her hands in front of her, form flickering again. She radiated pride.

“The halfa that defeated Pariah Dark and became the Ghost King?” Constantine obviously wanted to get the hell out of Gotham.

“The same.” She repeated.

“Ghost King?” Batman frowned. “Why is he coming here?”

She disappeared, reappearing several feet to her left. “He is in need of a home. He is only sixteen human years old.”

“He’s a child?!” Constantine looked horrified. “And he became the Ghost King!?”

“Yes.” She said, somewhat patient. “My son is welcome here, so you will welcome him.”

Constantine was lighting that second cigarette. “Son… I gotta...I gotta sit down.”

Batman however was trying to ignore what he couldn’t grasp at the moment, and focus on what he could. “Documentation and lodgings for two minors is well within my means to provide.” He glanced back at Constantine who was walking away to grab a chair. “You’ll explain the Ghost King thing later.”

Constantine just waved him off as he collapsed into a chair.

Lady Gotham had moved, now standing directly in front of Batman without having moved a muscle. “My son and his human sister know what it means to be hunted. My child’s core screams for help and receives so little.” She suddenly seemed to tower over batman in a way she didn’t before. “He will receive assistance here.”

Batman stood firm, but it would be a lie to say he was completely unaffected. Despite that trickle of fear in his chest, he’d always done his best to be there for his kids. It didn’t mean he was successful, but he tried. What was two more? “I understand. Whatever he’s running from will be handled. When will he arrive?”

Lady Gotham paused. “Soon. Travel is slow, but steady. Another day.”

Batman hummed, that was plenty of time to get everything set up temporarily. He would talk to the Ghost King and his sister to discuss more permanent plans. His attitude however, seemed to be just what Lady Gotham expected.

She turned to Constantine. “You will find him easiest. Bring them here.”

Constantine heaved a sigh and pulled out a flask from his jacket pocket. He didn’t barter, try to make some kind of deal, or attempt to gain some form of payment. Lady Gotham was a force of nature all on her own but there was no way he was pissing off the mother of the Ghost King. That was asking for trouble even if the kid was a king. His power must have been something else… “Got it.” he agreed.

She sighed, the sound content. “Thank you, Knight. My son will be in good hands.” Or Else, didn’t need to be spoken.

She turned, and just like that she was gone, her powerful aura along with her. In a flash it was like she’d never been there at all.

Batman took a moment to just breathe and regain his bearings before turning back to Constantine. “What did i just agree to?”

“Not much.” Constantine said dryly. “Just being the foster dad to the Ghost King. King of the Infinite Realm.”

Well… It wasn’t the first time he’d adopted a teenager. Batman just reaffirmed his plans for the rest of the day and turned to change back into his civilian attire and head back up into his mansion. He needed to talk to Alfred immediately.

“Better you than me…” Constantine grumbled. This was going to be pure chaos, but he also had to wonder…what it was that spooked the kid that defeated Pariah Dark? That was something to look into.

Neither man had noticed when Tim had walked in, having watched most of that interaction from a safe distance away. “What the absolute fuck was that....?” 

~~ ~~

I would really kind of enjoy a 16 year old Danny meeting and bonding with a 19 year old Jason… Also… Constantine texting Bruce the very moment he lays eyes on Danny. Yep! This kid is totally Wayne material. He’ll mix in with the others seamlessly.

No plans to continue this at this point if someone else wants a turn. 

~Edit- I apparently lied...  Part 2  

[brawltogethernow]

@mirrorfalls​ submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

~~

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

[aion-rsa]

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 7 Review: Damage From the Inside

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Fear the Walking Dead review contains spoilers. 

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 7

The last time I struggled to write a review for Fear the Walking Dead was the season 4 finale, “…I Lose Myself.” I wrote at the time, “Several false starts and a couple thousand words later, I realized I wasn’t writing a review for a lackluster episode. Rather, I was writing a eulogy for a show I once loved.”

Unfortunately, history seems to be repeating itself. And this is a difficult thing to admit, since season 6 showed so much promise. If this season could be described as a single color, it would be greige, the nearly nonexistent color that exists between beige and grey. Greige is the color of long-in-the-tooth zombies. It is the color of leftover oatmeal. Greige is, in a word, the very color of boredom itself. Season 6 hasn’t been all bad, of course. After all, I gave very high marks to “Alaska.” But if that episode represents a high point for the season, “Damage From the Inside�� is most certainly its nadir. Plans go awry, again. Tables are turned, again. Characters do baffling things, again. And Morgan turns up to stir the plot yet again. 

I realize it seems a bit unfair to judge “Damage” as a mid-season finale. Certainly showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg never intended it as such, but because of happenstance (re: the pandemic), this is the last episode of Fear AMC has in the pipeline. So I’m willing to cut “Damage” a bit of slack in that regard. Still, the episode simply doesn’t work on its own merits.

Honestly, I don’t know what to say about Fear at this point as it’s difficult to witness so much squandered potential yet again. Remember season 4’s strong start? New characters were brought into the mix, like John Dorie and Al. Morgan, too, was brought over from The Walking Dead to kick off what was meant to be a fresh start for Fear. And for a while, this gamble to overhaul the show initially paid off, only to eventually go off the rails with weak antagonists like the Vultures, and later, Martha. By the end of season 4, “Fear 2.0” was slowly sabotaged from the inside. So maybe it’s fitting that the death knell for this current iteration of Fear is titled “Damage From the Inside.”

At this point I think it’s safe to assume that Ginny’s sister Dakota (Zoe Colletti) is responsible for much of Lawton’s current woes. As we learn in “Damage,” Ginny (Colby Minifie) killed their parents, which seems like pretty sufficient motivation for Dakota to undermine her sister’s accomplishments. She even hints as much to Strand (Colman Domingo) during his mission to escort her to a safe house. She also conveniently summarizes Ginny’s recent setbacks: Tank Town, gone. Ginny’s hand, gone. Two scouts, dead. And Ranger John Dorie? Still missing. In other words, it’s the perfect time to put Strand’s escape plan into effect. That is, until the convoy is ambushed and Dakota is kidnapped.

Enter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) who is summoned by Strand to track down Dakota. As much as I enjoy Debnam-Carey being back in the mix, “Damage” doesn’t really know what to do with her. The only agency this once-powerful character possesses is the ability to hold a grudge—and that’s about it. Once a formidable zombie killer, Alicia can barely hold her ground against a reclusive taxidermist.

In tracking down Dakota, Alicia and Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) discover a remote hunting lodge tucked away in the woods. There they encounter Ed (Raphael Sbarge), a creepy, off-kilter taxidermist. Which, fine. Creepy can be good, right? Especially since Alicia’s initial exploration of the lodge reminded me a lot of earlier entries in Capcom’s Resident Evil videogame series. The lighting is sufficiently eerie and the distant strains of classical music contribute to the mounting mystery and dread. “Damage” doubles down on the Resident Evil vibes by revealing that Ed is turning the dead into disturbing works of art to scare off would-be intruders. Which, again, fine.

But what rankles me about “Damage” is that it cedes the stage to Ed. Rather than bring something new to the table, Ed airs the sorts of grievances and revelations that no longer hold any shock value in this world—for its characters, or for viewers. Ed’s mistakes killed his family? Fear has already been there, done that. Plus the whole case of mistaken intent/identity didn’t do “Honey” any favors, either, so why would it work here when Ed drugs Alicia and straps her to a table?

Ed’s familiar backstory is a big part of why this episode simply doesn’t work. He exists purely to help Alicia understand some basic things about herself. His life, his missteps, they mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Which is why his grand sacrifice is more of an empty gesture robbed of any profundity. That Alicia would be so rattled by his death just doesn’t play. (Plus what was left of him to bury after being ripped apart by zombies? A femur?)

Which finally brings us to Morgan, who shows up just in time to save the day. But any kind of happy reunion is quickly undone when we learn it was Morgan who ambushed Strand’s convoy and killed the rangers. Why? So he could capture Dakota and use her as leverage to rescue Grace. This was basically Alicia’s plan, too—to hand over Dakota to buy her and Charlie their freedom. 

Which, again, fine. Everyone has their own agenda. But how many conflicting plans does a single season really need? I’m all for conflict, but who thought it would be fun or effective to see Morgan repeatedly butt heads as he tries to push through his own plan—his own version of the “Queen’s Gambit”, if you will? This popular gambit requires sacrificing a pawn, but Alicia has suddenly decided Dakota is more than a mere pawn, thank you very much.

But the queen has an important pawn of her own—namely Grace (Karen David), who she’s kept in a secret room in Lawton. Why Ginny would trust Strand with this vital bit of information is truly baffling, especially since her kingdom is crumbling around her. 

Viewers will have plenty of time to contemplate these questionable choices, especially now that Fear enters an extended hiatus. Perhaps the intended mid-season finale will eventually reveal Dakota as the saboteur. Maybe Lawton will fall. And maybe, just maybe, Grace will go into labor, providing a bookend birth to the one that kicked off the season.

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In the meantime, while we wait for Fear‘s return, stay safe, and stay tuned.

The post Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 7 Review: Damage From the Inside appeared first on Den of Geek.

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