Fear the Walking Dead season 3 episode 9: Underlying Nick, Troy tension

Moving into Fear the Walking Dead season 3 episode 9 airing on AMC Sunday night, the characters of Nick and Troy may be the most intriguing. These two are probably more equipped to handle the apocalypse than most, largely because of the fact that neither one of them was all that well-equipped to handle the real world. Both of them suffer from serious demons crawling around in their brains. For Nick, many of them stem from addiction. For Troy, many of them stem from the lack of a coping mechanism. He was never truly cared for, and no one ever set limits on his sociopathic behavior.

Now, both are in a landscape where they can do whatever they want; we’ve already seen Troy do plenty of killing, and he may continue to do that. Meanwhile, Nick’s been a bit more meticulous about who he’s chosen to shoot … though when he does do it, the people he chooses to kill are very much important. At the end of this past episode he opted to do away with Jeremiah Otto, the leader of Broke Jaw Ranch and the man enabling Troy’s psychosis. After all, he had plenty of it in his own right.

This sneak peek below doesn’t really rely at all on what happened to Jeremiah, and instead sheds more light on the relationship between these two men while out in the field. Troy seems more than happy to needle Nick on a wide array of different things, including him having the “soul of a poet.” While Troy may not be coming out and saying it blatantly, the implication is still clear when it comes to what he’s doing. He is, very much intentionally, working to get under Nick’s skin. He wants him to think as though he’s not cut out for this world or with his group, and he wants to minimize his power and significance among some of the other men. This is someone who very clearly knows what he’s doing, and we wouldn’t be shocked if he does this throughout the first two episodes airing on Sunday night.

Beyond this, there is of course another rather-large question: Will we get a chance to see Nick reveal the truth to Troy in the premiere about Jeremiah? We don’t think that he’s going to just offer the information up, but Troy learning this is key to progressing the story forward. He is a man with the potential to become The Governor or any other iconic Walking Dead villain if handed that sort of power. The struggle for Nick, Madison, and some of the self-defined “good guys” is deciding whether to put a stop to Troy before his demons get worse. We’re not sure they’re going to get better.

Are you excited for Fear the Walking Dead season 3 episode 16?

Feel free to share in the comments! Meanwhile, you can head over to the link here to receive some more of our CarterMatt coverage on the show and what could be coming up next. (Photo: AMC.)