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If an episode of Fear the Walking Dead ends with an unexpected appearance by an actor named Cliff Curtis, is that technically a cliffhanger?

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer, I suppose. But what else can you do? Despite its portentous, Lot’s-wife-referencing title, “Pillar of Salt,” this week’s Fear the Walking Dead had little more on the docket that simply showing us where everybody is (except Chris; thank heaven for small favors) and what everybody’s doing. A “surprise” ending that features one of the show’s top-billed actors getting closer to the other top-billed actors, after an episode filled with more of the same, is all too fitting. There’s was nothing going on here, good or bad — the episode simply existed.

Okay, so there was that moment when Sue Ellen Mischke from Seinfeld stabbed Victor Strand in the gut.

You’d think that’d be enough to give the episode some oomph, right? But take a closer look. This takes place not at the end of the hour as either a climax or a cliffhanger, nor at a moment that serves as a fulcrum for the episode’s emotional shifts. It just sort of…happens, about 15 minutes in. Eileen, the mom-gone-mad who attacks Victor for putting down her zombified daughter, disappears from the rest of the ep; we get no further chance to see what this all means to her. Victor himself wisecracks his way through getting treated for his wound, deflating any real sense of urgency — particularly when it becomes apparent that the whole thing is just an excuse to connect the crew at the hotel to the gangsters who control the supply of medicine for the area, including for the colonia where Nick currently lives. This isn’t any kind of payoff for anybody’s buildup as a character, it’s not a sincere attempt to explore trauma and grief, it’s barely even a pretext for Maddie’s impassioned declaration that from now on, anyone who raises a hand to anyone else will be cast out. (“Exiled,” to use her charming choice of word.) It’s just a way to get from point a to point b, using the point of a knife.

Events elsewhere move with the same kind of dully utilitarian vibe. Early in the episode, a family sneaks out of the colonia and is immediately captured by the gangsters. Now both sides have the excuse they need to precipitate the armed conflict that’s the Walking Dead franchise’s inevitable response to the establishment of stable communities — particularly since Alejandro, the holy-rolling pharmacist who leads the colony, is starting to fall apart as his people sneak away and thus call his belief system into question. Plus, as hostages, the runaway family can conveniently talk to the ganglord about the drug-running gringo with ratty hair who’s recently taken up residence wit them within earshot of Maddie, visiting the gang’s supermarket headquarters for Victor’s meds. And did we mention that the hotel employees have a relative in the gang, who’s also present for the big meeting with Maddie? Coincidences like this pile up fast and furious. In order to facilitate this shoddy plot-hammering, we get to watch a little girl get covered in the blood of a corpse and cower as men with guns terrify her and her family when they’re taken prisoner. It’s a cheap and cheesy reason to deploy imagery that extreme.

Oh yeah, in a separate thread Ofelia — who neither killed herself nor got eaten by zombies — made it out of the hotel alive and is driving toward the American border while flashing back to extremely boring memories about her fiancé and mother. Mom gives a speech about how love means doing absolutely anything for your loved ones, which I guess makes sense as a definition on a show that needs to provide its character with excuses to murder people all the time.

So that brings us to our “cliffhanger.” Convinced the ratty-haired gringo she heard about in the supermarket is Nick, Maddie turns on the hotel’s now-working lights the moment she returns, putting everyone there in jeopardy by attracting attention just so Nick might see it. Alicia, who’s felt neglected for some time, reads her the riot act; in the distance, Travis sees the lights and, I assume, figures it’s Maddie, because it’s preposterously easy for these people to find each other all the time. And that’s the end of the episode. Just a bunch of pieces moving across a chessboard, basically. It’s better than slaughtering strangers, I suppose, but not by much.
[Where to Stream Fear the Walking Dead]
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, the Observer, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.
[Gifs copyright AMC, by Meghan O’Keefe]