The season finale of Fear the Walking Dead will likely depict Operation Cobalt going into effect. If so, it answers a big question Walking Dead fans have been wondering about the apocalypse.

Last Sunday’s new episode of Fear the Walking Dead found Daniel uncovering the meaning of Operation Cobalt: It’s the military’s plan to leave Los Angeles and its people behind.

(Side note: “Cobalt” was Fear the Walking Dead’s working title while it was in development. We love the showrunners for making a nod to the early days of the project!)

It’s terrifying for the residents to lose their security. Then again, the members of the military have been total jerks over the past two episodes. The families are stuck between a rock and a hard place: Yes, the annoying military is getting out of their way, but they need something to protect them from the walkers that lurk outside the fence!

Will the lack of military be to blame for the upcoming meltdown?

Operation Cobalt is very interesting outside of the aforementioned predicament: Is this the reason the infection spread so quickly across the country? Remember, in The Walking Dead series premiere Rick awoke from his coma to find the world already in ruins. As we later learned, Mr. Grimes was only in his coma for 4 – 5 weeks.

That means it only took about a month for the walkers to ruin the country. How could they have caused so much damage so quick?

Maybe, as Operation Cobalt appears to be telling us, the military gave up on protecting society and all hell broke lose. We still don’t know why they’re bailing on protecting the people, but obviously they’ve made a very bad mistake.

Without military protection (big weapons, big tanks), the average citizens can only lock up their doors and hope for the best. Similarly, hospitals can only keep their walls secure for so long. All it’ll take is one walker entering through a broken fence or an accidentally-left-open door for all hell to break lose.

The military provides an extra layer of security that can help delay further disaster, but in fairness, the militarization of the city isn’t the ideal situation either (as Fear has already shown us). Let’s face it: There’s no good way to deal with an apocalypse.

It all makes you wonder: If the military did stay, would things have returned to normal (minus the people they lost)? Or would the infection have continued to spread anyway?

Where we go from here

So what are Daniel and Travis going to do in the season finale this Sunday? They could try to hold down the safe zone themselves which seems like the most likely option. Leaving Los Angeles and heading to the desert, as Madison and Travis were previously contemplating, sounds like too risky a move — And who wants to move to a location with a very hot climate when electricity is so unreliable?

Travis, a.k.a Mr. Mayor, seems like the type of person who would rather hold down the fort in L.A. in hopes of making things good again. Even though he talks of leaving in a preview for the finale, time and time again he’s shown he’s a compassionate person. We can’t imagine him wanting to leaving his people behind after the military abandons town.

The main issue with staying in town, as Travis is about to find out, is that they may have a new enemy afoot: Strand. He seems to have intrigued Nick in jail and now they’re preparing to break out. (Side note: We can’t wait to see the personalities of Strand and Daniel clash in Fear the Walking Dead’s season finale or season 2 premiere. These two will probably hate each other.)

The military mentioned two weeks ago that there were several other safe zones scattered across Los Angeles. With season 2 of Fear the Walking Dead running over 15 episodes, we bet we’ll be meeting new characters in the other safe zones. And you can bet there will be many fireworks between the groups.

Buckle in… we’re just getting started.