The following contains spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead, Season 7, Episode 11, "Ofelia," which aired Sunday, May 1, on AMC.
Fear the Walking Dead's Season 7B started out with a lackluster episode, but since then, the series has started to step things up. "Mourning Cloak" kind of ruined the potential for Madison's return, but it was much better than fans gave it credit for. "Ofelia" was another drastic improvement and an unquestioned success. It didn't have to introduce another one-off character just to make a statement, and it added to the series-long conflict between Victor Strand and Daniel Salazar.
Season 7A ended on an emotional high note, with Alicia and Strand acknowledging their differences and deicing that war was the only remedy between them. "Ofelia" showed Morgan's group taking the first practical steps toward war. While Morgan, Dwight and Sherry went after a weapons cache, fans got to see an episode focused on Daniel, Luciana and Wes -- and one that made clear Daniel and Strand are on a collision course.
Season 6 showed that Daniel was losing his memory, and "Ofelia" proved that it was only getting worse. Luciana had been dedicating time to helping him stay sharp, but for some reason, he was convinced that his daughter Ofelia was still alive. That was the premise for the episode: he left the submarine to look for his deceased child. Luciana and Wes went out to look for him, and that's when Arno and his followers captured everybody, landing them all in a heap of trouble.
Arno knew that Dwight had found a weapons cache and threatened to kill the three of them if they didn't reveal its location. That's when things started to get tricky. Daniel's memory wasn't working, but his mind was. Convinced that Arno was holding Ofelia captive (which Arno falsely admitted to), Daniel gave up a fake location for the weapons. That made half of Arno's followers leave to look for the weapons, which allowed Daniel, Luciana and Wes to escape. They did so -- but not before Daniel killed Arno for lying about his daughter.
Things could have ended there, but Luciana made a game-changing decision. She noticed how ruthless Daniel became when he was focused on finding Ofelia... so she lied and told him that Strand had Ofelia locked away in his tower. While it was heartless, Luciana's lie was calculated and militant. She knew that Daniel's past as a Sombra Negra agent would help Morgan's group capture the tower and overthrow Strand. She was determined to access that part of his mind at all costs.
But she may not have needed to go that far, because Daniel and Strand have never gotten along. Daniel was overly suspicious of Victor when they originally met in Season 1. Then in Season 3, Strand lied about Ofelia being at the Rosarito Beach Hotel, so Daniel left him for dead. That was also the season in which Victor sold out the Gonzalez Dam to the Proctors and shot Daniel in the cheek. Season 5 did include an uneasy alliance between them, but that won't matter. Daniel's mind is fixated on his daughter, and all he will be able to remember is the lie that Luciana told about her.
To put it bluntly, Strand is screwed. Daniel's track record proves that he's the most badass character on Fear the Walking Dead, and there's no way that Strand will be able to finagle the truth enough to get out unscathed. Daniel may not end up killing Strand (because FTWD never kills any major character off), but Strand's lordship at the tower will be quickly drawing to a close now that Daniel has the other man in his sights again.
To see what Daniel does to Strand, tune into Fear the Walking Dead Season 7. New episodes air Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on AMC and are available to stream early on AMC+.