"Shiva" - Fear the Walking Dead's midseason finale - interestingly wound up splitting up our group of survivors into three different factions by the end. An intriguing move going forward and one that lets us keep the yacht while also being able to follow some land-based adventures as we enter the back half of the season. A move that almost makes up for the Walking Dead cliche of quickly ruining a safe haven within hours of arriving. Something that our ragtag troupe of heroes very much has in common with Rick and his crew over on the original series.

Fear the Walking Dead: "Shiva" Photos 12 IMAGES

Because yeah, Celia's compound got burned to a crip by the end of this one. Compliments of a deranged Daniel who - seemingly out of nowhere - had gone bats*** mad. I don't know what I mourn more: the loss of Daniel overall or the rushed feeling to his show exit. Because while we knew he was haunted, his "oddness" didn't really grab hold until last week when everyone arrived in Mexico and he started clashing with Celia. Then, this week, there was a huge jump with regards to his failing psychological state. A massive leap in dementia. And all we really got as a set up for it was the nightmare he had at the top of the episode.Rubén Blades performance was actually great this week, but that doesn't change the fact that Daniel imploded way too fast. It felt unnatural, as though the show was trying to service the plot (which required a burning compound) than the character himself.And yes, getting back to what I wrote earlier, I'll miss Daniel (sane Daniel) since he was one of the few likable characters on this show. Which now includes...one? Maybe two? He was a capable, smart, cautious protector. A bedrock for a very shaky ensemble of characters with questionable decision-making skills.Plus, his exit, down in the walker cellar, sort of stepped on Madison's big moment. Just a few scenes earlier, Madison murdered Celia by locking her in the cell with the walkers. All to protect "easily influenced" Nick. It was actually very cool and brutal. Because she didn't mercy kill (to the brain) Celia. Nor did she straight-up kill her so that she could come back as one of her precious walkers. She left Celia there to get ripped apart by zombies. The worst fate possible. I really liked the harshness of this.But then Daniel came in and torched everything, making Madison's move feel a touch empty in the long run. Because crazy Daniel was going to solve their problems anyway by burning himself alive and making it so no one could live there.I'll say this for Chris. Watching him make horrible decisions for a bunch of episodes was very frustrating. But at least his big turn feels more earned. I get why he is the way he is now. And I really enjoyed Travis' decision to stay behind with him, realizing (after seeing Chris get really dark by threatening a young boy) that he couldn't just "bring him home." Things were not fine. And that the time was right for him to devote himself to his son and be the father that he probably hadn't been for the past few years. This I got.Nick? Well, Nick's sort of a mixed bag right now. Firstly, he seems to have gross human guts AT THE READY for whenever he needs to slather himself and walk out among the dead. And given that, I never bought him siding with Celia about what the dead actually are (a new beginning, the end of death itself, etc). I understand that Nick's flighty and probably feels at home on his own (or out among the roaming masses of rotting carcasses), but his switch over these past two episodes, like Daniel's, seemed to come too fast. Someone with a newfound reverence for the "dead" shouldn't really be all that keen on using their intestines as camouflage.