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Robb Black wakes up early Sunday morning to watch FTWD S06E06 to answer your questions.

Why is June performing surgery in the back of a semi-truck?
June has been paired up with Sarah. They have converted Sarah's truck into a mobile medical clinic. They drive from community to community to help people who are sick and injured. Unfortunately, this system is not working out very well because they can never seem to get to people in time to save them.

In the preview for this episode, there is a woman running through the woods who looks a lot like Sarah. Is that Sarah? What is she running from?
The woman is someone named Paige. She has been working at the lumber mill. Ginny is chasing after her because she suspects Paige is part of the "The End is the Beginning" group that has been sabotaging the communities and tagging the sabotage with that saying. Instead of allowing herself to be interrogated, Paige steals one of the Rangers' guns and shoots herself in the head.

Why is everyone covered in oil?
Luciana's crew at tank town is trying to build a new well, but an accident happens and something explodes. People are injured and killed in the accident, and the well is uncapped spewing oil into the air.

Do June and John run away together?
No. June decides to stay after she forces Ginny to agree to build a hospital. Unfortunately, John was serious about leaving and instead of following June and Sarah's truck, he takes a fork in the road that will lead him back to his cabin.

WHERE IS SKIDMARK?
Six episodes in and still no Skidmark. Rage as you see fit.

Robb Black's Review
You would think that an episode focused on Tank Town would be a Luciana centered episode, but this episode is all about June. Sarah's truck has been converted into a mobile medical clinic. June and Sarah have been driving between communities trying to tend to people's medical emergencies. Unfortunately, the distance makes it difficult and June is frustrated that they never seem to get to people in time to save them. June has approached Ginny about building a centralized medical facility for the communities, but Ginny is very reluctant to allow community members to travel on their own outside their communities. John meets up with June and Sarah and while riding together in John's car he tries to convince June to leave with him. He is desperate to get out of Ginny's communities after the Janis incident. June is very reluctant, but John is persistent. Before June is able to give him her final answer Luciana breaks in on the radio. Something has happened at Tank Town and they need June there ASAP. John then gets a similar call from the Rangers to head to Tank Town.

When they arrive they find a disaster scene unfolding. The Tank Town workers are stumbling out of the tunnel, injured and covered in oil. Luciana explains that one of the wells blew and there is open flame near the tanks. People are still trapped inside so June is planning to take the truck in to help evacuate them. Ginny pulls up and orders her Rangers to start interrogating the injured while she and two other Rangers accompany Luciana and June back into Tank Town. They manage to evacuate most of the injured workers. The only one left is Wes who as taken shrapnel to the belly. However, Ginny is more concerned about figuring out what caused this accident than Wes' health. They search his bunk and discover his spray paint cans from his time before when he would paint trees. This convinces Ginny that Wes is part of the TEITB group. She starts to torture him for information about the group by pressing on his wound. June cuts her off by injecting a sedative into Wes that renders him unconscious.

They manage to get Wes out of Tank Town, but June and Ginny get trapped inside a building as Tank Town explodes. Ginny awakens from the shock of the explosion to find a walker on top of her. She frantically tries to push it away, but the walker manages to bite down on Ginny's hand. Rangers radio Ginny and she tells them what happened. The Rangers inform her that the whole place blew up and it is going to take a while for them to get back in there to rescue them. Ginny spots an axe in the rubble of the building where she and June are trapped. Ginny prepares herself for amputation, but June gets to the axe first and pins Ginny against the floor pressing the axe against Ginny's neck. She refuses to treat Ginny because of how Ginny has been treating everyone. Ginny makes an impassioned plea for June to look after Dakota because that is the only reason why Ginny has done any of this -- it was all to protect her little sister. Ginny tells her that June has no idea how it feels to care about someone and not be able to help them. This breaks June's resolve and she sanitizes the axe with moonshine before amputating Ginny's hand.

June and Ginny are rescued and back at the truck Sarah, Luciana, and Wes all question why June saved Ginny's life. June tells them she was finally able to get Ginny to agree to the hospital and they will have full control of running it. She also negotiated having Wendell reunited with Sarah. John and June meet up and John tells her he is ready to leave. But now June wants to stay because of the hospital and because of the threat from the TEITB group. John agrees to follow the truck as they drive off, but when he gets to a fork in the road, John veers off to head to his cabin.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. The Ginny/June confrontation at the end of the episode where Ginny is pleading for June to save her life is some of the best acting and dialogue for Elfman's June since the "Laura" episode and is a highlight of this episode. It also shows Ginny's vulnerability and desperation not just about her sister, but also the threat from the TEITB group. The low light for me is the lack of Luciana. Danay Garcia maybe had a full page of dialogue in this episode even though it took place at Tank Town. I would have liked to have an episode dedicated to what life was like at Tank Town because it is clear from how Luciana interacts with Ginny that Ginny is not a fan of safety and protecting the workers at the facility. Additionally I have never been a fan of the June's theme about running away from places. It just never made a lot of sense to me. And because this is a June centered episode, that theme is prominent. The interaction between John and June both at the beginning of the episode and at the end is just heart wrenching. For John to leave June behind just shows how desperate John is and how he is struggling with what happened to Janis. Finally, I feel like the more technical the plot becomes, the more rickety it gets. The writers for this show have proven to us time and again that they do not do well when it comes to technical things like turning oil into gasoline, or the physics behind how radios work (I've just given up on that and have accepted that in their world radios have unlimited power and unlimited distance and everyone just happens to know the frequency that everyone else is using all the time). While the concept of a mobile medical clinic makes sense, how it is used doesn't make sense. Neither does the fact that they have been awake for over 24 hours and they just get back in the truck to drive away. I feel like the writers need to learn that Google is their friend, and I'm sure there are all sorts of technical consultants at their disposal if they just asked for them.

As you can see, I have very mixed feelings about this episode, but I give it the benefit of the doubt with a 7/10. The direction they are taking June and John is intriguing to me and I am eager to see if Ginny's "see the light" moment with June really does change Ginny or if it just emboldens her to become even more of a tyrant. Regardless, what I really want is more Luciana and more Skidmark. Is that too much to ask?


The truth is out there