Cody goes through season 2 of Fear the Walking Dead episode-by-episode.
Season 2, Episode 1: Monster
PLOT: The survivors of Fear the Walking Dead season 1 attempt to escape zombie hordes and military bombings by setting out to sea on the Abigail, a yacht captained by the mysterious Victor Strand.
REVIEW: As of the closing moments of the first season of Fear the Walking Dead, the show was one I was rooting for more than I was enjoying. While I think a show set in the universe of The Walking Dead but in a different location at an earlier time has potential, it's a potential that I didn't feel those first six episodes quite reached. My issues with it were the pace and tone, which was much more sedate than I expected, and a lack of characters I could connect to, but those are issues that could be fixed as the show goes on. I could grow to care for these characters more, and the show could become more exciting. I'm holding on and tuning in hoping that Fear the Walking Dead will really take off. Maybe by the end of this fifteen episode second season it will be the show I believe it could be.
The slow build of season one did pay off quite spectacularly with that finale. Two thousand zombies surging through a military base may have been worth a couple of episodes of people sitting around in a quarantine zone. The season two premiere gets off to a promising start, with the military's explosive attempt at reducing the number of zombies taking a chunk out of California while the walking dead close in on the lead characters as they make their escape out to the yacht called the Abigail.
A friend of mine was recently saying that she thought the characters on The Walking Dead should try to escape the zombie threat by taking a boat out to sea, so it's quite an entertaining coincidence that Fear the Walking Dead is going that way. Once they're out on the water, the show still takes a couple moments for the characters to sit around and be pensive, but this episode actually moves along at a good clip, especially for this show.
One of my favorite aspects of The Walking Dead and many of my favorite zombie movies is the fact that other people prove to be a greater threat than the living dead. That element was present with the troubles the characters had with the military in the first season, but we didn't get a great villain out of the situation. What's going on in the season two premiere is much more interesting. The characters have now, essentially, been rescued by Victor Strand, but there is a huge chance this guy isn't really trustworthy. Captivatingly played by Colman Domingo, Strand could turn out to be an amazing hero or a formidable foe, and the show greatly benefits from his presence either way. The mystery of Strand's true colors is made even more fun by the fact that the character who trusts him the least is my other favorite presence on the show, Ruben Blades as Daniel. I look forward to (potentially) seeing those two butt heads.
A down side for me is the abundance of pain-in-the-ass kids on this show. The biggest pain right now is Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris, who has gone from not wanting to spend time with his father to being stuck with him for good after the tragic death of his mother. It's understandable that Chris wouldn't be handling the situation well, but does he have to be so annoying? Hopefully his character will become more interesting instead of just continuing to be a little douche. At least Frank Dillane's Nick has finally kicked his drug habit and is embracing his natural fearlessness, so it looks like he'll be less of a pain this time around and could be becoming a strong character. Less impressive is the behavior of Alycia Debnam-Carey's Alicia, as she spills the details of the Abigail to some nice-sounding stranger on the radio. That's okay, though. That looks to be bringing in more human villains, which this show needs.
The villains set up here have already provided us with something special, zombies of a sort we've never seen on these Walking Dead shows before. Aquatic zombies! They might not have been as awesome as the water zombie that fought the shark in Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE, but it was a cool sequence nonetheless.
Fear the Walking Dead still hasn't blown me away, but with the first episode of season two it seems to be heading in the right direction.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: As cool as it was when Travis and Madison (Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens) were battling zombies on the beach with bombs going off in the background, the standout moment of the show were those zombies floating in the sea with their lifejackets on.
GORY GLORY: Nick shoving the propeller of a boat's outboard motor into the face of an attacking walker was a zombie kill worthy of cheers.
FAVORITE SCENE: As Alicia scans the radio channels, she catches a broadcast from the Coast Guard informing citizens that they have no way to rescue them, not by sea, land, or air. "There's nothing. Forgive us." This message felt like something that could have been in DAWN OF THE DEAD and it warmed my Romero-loving heart.
Season 2, Episode 2: We All Fall Down
PLOT: Being pursued by a boatload of potential villains, the passengers of the Abigail seek refuge on an island inhabited by one very suspicious family.
REVIEW: Fear the Walking Dead threw me a curveball. Given the ending of last week's episode, I expected this week's to be more of an intense chase on the high seas. After all, the Abigail is being pursued by a faster boat containing people who may have gunned down a boatload of innocents. I thought we'd see a lot more of the Abigail chugging along with the bad guys gaining on her. Instead, the show went in a more old fashioned television direction, dropping our heroes into a situation with a new batch of characters, getting them wrapped up in their story, then having them move on at the end, likely never to see them again. (Definitely never seeing a couple of them again.)
As much as I want to meet the people on the boat looking for the Abigail, this standalone side-story episode worked for me because the family found living on this wildlife refuge island are quite an interesting bunch, and the Clarks and Manawas got to have some very intriguing interactions with them. I especially enjoyed the scenes between Travis and island dweller George, discussing the zombie apocalypse as well as New Zealand culture. I like that this show has allowed Cliff Curtis to play his own ethnicity for a change, opening the door for these references to Māori customs.
The information George has drives home the fact that the world is crumbling even more. In George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, there's a suggestion that one way to deal with the zombie problem may be to drop nukes on all the major cities. They're not going with the nuclear option, but bombing is the solution the military has gone with here, dropping napalm on all the big cities along the west coast. The U.S. border is closed, ranger stations are shutting down from California to the continental divide... It's the end of the world as we know it, and I love stories like this. Fear the Walking Dead has the opportunity to show civilization crumble piece by piece, and the more they have scenes like this, the more entertainment I'm going to get out of it.
Beyond Travis and George, we have Madison delving into the mysterious behavior of her fellow mother, little Harry's odd talk of "power pills", Alicia talking about the "Ring Around the Rosie"/Great Plague connection (this has been dismissed as an urban legend, but it's a fitting subject for a zombie show), and one of the most disturbing elements of this episode, teenage Seth showing Chris, still brooding over the loss of his mother and angry at his father for killing her as she became a zombie, how he deals with the zombies who show up at the island's beach fence. Chris seems really into killing things at this point, and if he doesn't get it together soon I have a feeling he's going to become a villain himself.
While strange things are going down on the island, we have my two favorite characters bouncing off each other back on the Abigail, with Daniel keeping a close eye on the boat's owner(?) Victor Strand, hanging over him "like the spectre of death" and questioning every little thing about him. The more Daniel doubts him, the more it's becoming clear that Strand is deceiving his passengers in some way, and this storyline is fascinating to me.
There were two searches in this episode that I was quite happy with the outcome of. First, it was good to see Nick, checking in on the "at risk youths" of Catrina Island, sifting through pharmaceuticals and not popping any of them. We don't need to see him do any more of that kind of stuff, especially now that he's taking on more and more of a heroic role. Secondly, not only did Daniel's search of the Abigail turn up some clues to Strand's secrets, it also gave us the awesome sight of him holding a machine gun that he will hopefully soon be firing. The sly way he draws and points his gun during the final moments of the episode was also extremely badass.
Another thing that brought a smile to my face was the sequence set to "Coxcomb Red" by Songs: Ohia, which Alicia is listening to on her headphones. Whether it's Songs: Ohia or Magnola Electric Co., I've been a fan of the late singer/songwriter Jason Molina's work for several years, his music has been included in the soundtrack to some really rough times in my life, so it was great to hear one of his songs make it onto a high profile show like this.
The ending of this episode was a bit of a bummer, but I'm glad it went that way. We already have enough young people on board the Abigail, we didn't need the addition of the character the Clarks and Manawas were trying to bring on.
We All Fall Down wasn't at all what I expected to be watching this week, but as it came to a close I found it to be a wholly satisfying episode. Now the Abigail's travels continue, and it looks like things are going to get even worse and bloodier for our heroes. I can't wait to watch them endure the hardships ahead.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: With a picturesque sunset in the background, zombies wash up on the shore of Catrina Island and start making their way across the beach, only to be stopped by a chain link fence. That was a wonderfully moody cold open.
GORY GLORY: My pick for the best moment of bloodshed would have to be the scene in which a little zombie starts tearing into the throat of an adult.
FAVORITE SCENE: George bringing apocalyptic news to Travis as he talks about losing contact with park rangers and the bombings of Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, etc.
Season 2, Episode 3: Ouroboros
PLOT: Boat troubles give our heroes the opportunity to sift through the wreckage of Flight 462 on a zombie-infested island.
REVIEW: Way back in the third episode of Fear the Walking Dead's first season, an episode called The Dog, Nick (Frank Dillane) looked up at the sky to see a plane heading for a crash landing. The sixteen episode web series Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462, which also aired on AMC during The Walking Dead season 6 commercial breaks, filled in the story of that plane, and that short really did nothing for me. I felt that everything of value in it could have been whittled down into a few minutes and tacked onto a cold open sequence of a regular Fear the Walking Dead episode. That could have been done for this episode specifically, since this is when the paths of Nick and 462 again converge.
We had been told that a surviving character from Flight 462 would be joining the cast of Fear, and as Ouroboros gets started it seems pretty clear that the 462 passenger who's going to be sticking around a while is Michelle Ang's Alex. Fans had previously known the character as Charlie, and it's not clear why her name was changed from one gender neutral moniker to another. Brendan Meyer's Jake Powell had sort of been the emotional core of Flight 462, but the poor guy's not doing so well after the crash. I suppose he could be kept around to gradually heal and sport a severely scarred visage, but if there can be only one it's definitely Alex who should become a major player on this show. She's a tough character who walked into the Flight 462 episodes with a knowledge of zombies and a clear willingness to dispatch them, and if handled correctly she could become the closest thing this show has to the particular brand of badass that populates The Walking Dead.
Of course, you can take the fact that Michelle Ang is now listed with the main cast while Brendan Meyer is credited as a guest star as an indication of their individual staying power, but we know from the games played with Steven Yeun on the last season of The Walking Dead that these shows aren't above toying with the audience through their cast listings.
While Alex and Jake deal with the predicament the plane crash has left them in, the characters we've been following since season one continue to be pursued in the least thrilling chase in memory. There are .50 caliber machine gun-toting villains coming after their boat the Abigail, but the pace of the show isn't reflecting that. This time mechanical troubles cause the Abigail to sputter to a lengthy stop, but there's still no sign of baddies on the horizon.
It may not allow the human villains to arrive on the scene just yet, but those mechanical issues did allow Nick, Daniel (Ruben Blades), Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) to take a trip to the island where the Flight 462 wreckage and luggage has washed up on shore, a trip that culminates in some nice, bloody zombie action. There's still something about the tone of Fear the Walking Dead that makes even its action sequences seem less exciting to me than similar sequences on The Walking Dead, but it's always nice to see this show attempt to step it up a bit. While battling the zombies, Daniel caps them like the capable character we know him to be, Alicia fights her hardest, it remains disturbing every time Chris kills something, and Nick climbs higher on his ascent into the hero role... And we get to see the moment when these characters discover something the characters of The Walking Dead have known since their first season: zombies aren't interested in you if you're covered in the guts of their brethren. This moment of realization was presented in kind of an awkward way, with Nick stepping close enough to a zombie to be within kissing distance, but it brought a smile to my face when I figured out just what the hell he was doing.
There was also a nice step forward taken in the mystery of Abigail captain Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) in this episode, with Daniel passing along the "secret destination" information to Madison (Kim Dickens). Our heroes are still going along with Strand for now, but that massive douchebag move he pulls in the final moments brings up some interesting possibilities for the next episodes.
Fear the Walking Dead's version of an action-heavy episode, Ouroboros wasn't the most thrilling 42 minutes of television, but through its events this series continues to show signs of improvement.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Sure, it's goofy as hell that Nick manages to tumble into the pit where he finds a zombie stuck in the ground with crabs crawling in its stomach, but that doesn't take away from how cool that image of the zombie is.
GORY GLORY: Nick ends up a bloody mess while hacking his way through the zombie horde, providing not only a great visual but also hope that he might be changing outfits more often. I'm getting tired of that shabby get-up he's been wearing since the first episode, geriatric shoes and all.
FAVORITE SCENE: "This is the worst. It'll never hurt worse than right now. And every day will be a little better. This is the worst it's gonna be." And what happens next.
Season 2, Episode 4: Blood in the Streets
PLOT: The details of Victor Strand's history begin to be revealed as armed outsiders invade the Abigail.
REVIEW: I would be so dead in the zombie apocalypse. Even though Romero's DEAD films and The Walking Dead have drilled it into my head that other people are a greater threat than the zombies, when other survivors show up on these shows I'm always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. When characters have moral arguments over what they should do about certain people, I'm always on the side of those who say "We can't allow ourselves to lose our humanity." So when Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) and Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) spotted a trio of people, including a bleeding pregnant woman, rowing up to the yacht called Abigail and Chris started asking "Should I shoot them?", I was thinking, "No, Chris, you little burgeoning psycho, you should not shoot these people!"
Within moments this trio of people were holding our lead characters hostage at gunpoint and Chris's question was rubbed in his face by the worst of the bunch (Jesse McCartney as Reed): "If you have to ask the question, somebody should already be dead." This episode is largely about the Manawas, Clarks, Salazars, and captain Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) paying for making the same mistake I would have made.
Yes, these three people are from the boat that has been chasing the Abigail for the last couple episodes, and even though they manage to get the upper hand for a while, they're not really a very impressive bunch. Their leader Connor may have a .50 caliber machine gun at his disposal, but the first batch of his followers we get to meet sort of turn out to be The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. These are not the badass villains I was expecting.
The one interesting member of Connor's group is Jack, the guy Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) was talking to on the radio a few episodes back. When we finally see his face, it turns out to be Daniel Zovatto from IT FOLLOWS. This is supposed to be a recurring role for him, and I'm interested in seeing how the character of Jack will progress and what will happen between him and Alicia.
As we're learning more about the people who have been pursuing the Abigail, the man who is gradually becoming the hero of the series, Frank Dillane as Nick Clark, is off on his own side mission, and so we'll understand what's happening in his storyline we also need to learn more about Victor Strand. This information is delivered in a way that had me reminiscing about Lost - we get flashbacks to Strand's pre-zombie apocalypse life interspersed with the present day action.
With Strand's back story, this episode doubles down on disappointing reveals. Connor's group isn't looking promising, and Strand isn't nearly as interesting as viewers have been theorizing. His secrets aren't as dark as imagined. He's just a credit card thief who struck up a relationship with land developer Thomas Abigail (Dougray Scott, who I'll always know as The Man Who Would've Been Wolverine). A character this intriguing and that's the story they gave him? Is it me, am I expecting too much, or does this show have a habit of making the most bland choices possible?
Maybe there's more going on than meets the eye. I hope so, and Thomas's pal Luis (Arturo del Puerto) sure can cap people in the head like it's nothing, which I wouldn't expect from someone who was just in real estate.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of Connor's group and set-up, I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store for Strand and the others on the Abigail once they catch up with Thomas Abigail in Mexico, but I didn't find the steps taken in those directions in this episode to be very satisfying.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There aren't many to choose from here, so it would have to be the cold open, with Nick luring a walker to its (second and final) death in the village of abandoned tents, taking a moment to be face-to-face with it through the thin material of a tent flap before killing it.
GORY GLORY: The best gore moment comes directly after that walker kill, as Nick digs into the zombie's guts and smears them all over himself to hide his living human scent. It worked last episode, and it works again here.
FAVORITE SCENE: Madison (Kim Dickens) and Ofelia playing mind games with the pregnant invader, trying to get her to drop her guard by putting the idea of giving birth to a zombie into her head.
Season 2, Episode 5: Captive
PLOT: Our heroes on the Abigail try to figure out how to rescue Travis and Alicia from the clutches of Connor while dealing with a captive of their own.
REVIEW: I'll be honest, the revelations in last week's episode were so underwhelming that Fear the Walking Dead squandered a lot of the goodwill I had toward it. As much as I want this show to be awesome, it gets tough to root for a show that keeps shooting itself in the foot. Going into this week's episode, I was needing Fear to win me back. While Captive is less disappointing than Blood in the Streets was, it still leaves things on shaky ground for me.
One of the letdowns of last week was how pathetic the villainous Connor (Mark Kelly) and his people turned out to be. Multiple episodes of worrying about these characters built up to the reveal that they're just a bunch of inept nobodies, and they continue to be shockingly worthless and not at all intimidating this week. The best moment of this entire episode is when the Abigail's impaled captive Reed (Jesse McCartney) makes a desperate attempt to scare Daniel (Ruben Blades) and Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie), only to have his methods thrown back in his face. Every time Connor's people have the chance to get the upper hand, they let it slip through their fingers. They could have been so much more interesting than this.
With the mystique of Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) having taken quite a blow in Blood in the Streets, the show's biggest wild card is now Chris, and there were some interesting things done with that character in Captive. I think we all knew as soon as Chris was left to guard Reed that that situation could only go in a bad direction. Chris is so off-balance, it wouldn't even be surprising if Reed had managed to talk him into turning against the others on the Abigail. Instead, there's a bit of an intriguing mystery to what goes down. Was it cold-blooded murder and lies? Or was it an honest mistake? I don't know, but I don't trust this kid at all.
This episode also gave us the final answer of who would be the sole survivor from Flight 462 to join the cast. It was the obvious answer, and while I do think that her character could be made into something special as time goes on I can't say that the interactions between Travis (Cliff Curtis) and 462 passenger Alex (Michelle Ang) here were all that engaging for me. She should have been going after Strand anyway.
Captive wasn't as strong as I would have liked it to be, but it kept my attention through the shadowy antics of Chris, some solid moments with Daniel, and an entertaining climax. That climax is also one of its weaknesses, though, because Connor and his people suck! This is a group of bad guys so dumb that they go into a prisoner trade without any weapons at hand. This leads me to hope that maybe Connor's crew weren't the frightening figures lurking on the sea with a .50 caliber machine gun. Maybe there are bigger, badder villains still to come.
Maybe I'm grasping at straws, still hoping for Fear the Walking Dead to stop fumbling its storylines and live up to its potential.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There aren't exactly a wealth of choices here, so of course it would be when Chris's attempt to "stop someone from turning" backfires... but then turns out to be something of a blessing.
GORY GLORY: Again, there's not much to work with, but there is a zombie bite delivered to a character who very much deserved his early exit from this show.
FAVORITE SCENE: "In my time, I've known men who inspire fear. Do you know what they have in common? They never say how frightening they are."
Season 2, Episode 6: Sicut Cervus
PLOT: The Abigail finally arrives at its destination in Mexico, but the safe haven the passengers have been trying to reach might not be so safe after all.
REVIEW: After getting sidetracked and incovenienced by some very underwhelming villains, the passengers of the Abigail have finally made it to Baja, and while one of them perishes in the process of trying to reach the shore, that's still less trouble than I was anticipating. As it turns out, all that talk about needing to keep the number of passengers low and not being able to pay for everyone's passage into Baja was much ado about nothing. Everybody the Abigail has encountered since the season began could have rode into Baja together and most of them probably would have been fine. While it's annoying that the characters don't address this fact after the way ship captain Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) has acted about picking up extra survivors, I can't complain too much because the reason everyone is allowed to reach land is because the area is considered too dangerous to be concerned with. Extreme danger is always a good thing for this show.
I also can't mourn the loss of Luis (Arturo del Puerto) too much. We barely got to know him. His shooting skills at the end of Blood in the Streets made me think the character might have some potential, but no. He was done before he even got started.
The place the characters have been striving to get to is the walled-in, gated estate of Strand's boyfriend Thomas Abigail (Dougray Scott), and while the grounds appear to be safe Abigail has still managed to get himself bitten and is nearing death. This turn of events actually provided some touching character moments, allowing Strand to show more warmth and humanity than I ever expected to see from that guy. The choice he contemplates making toward the end of the episode was somewhat shocking to me. This is the same Strand who leaves people adrift in the ocean?
Celia Flores (Marlene Forte), mother of Luis and surrogate mother to Abigail, is a very interesting addition to the show, a likeable presence but also a mysterious one. What's with all the owl symbolism? Why did Daniel (Ruben Blades) just toss Luis's owl coin into the sea? And what's with Nick (Frank Dillane) having trippy flashbacks while staring at an owl carving?
Celia isn't the only mysterious one around here, as the show continues to tease us about Daniel's troubled history. He's start to lose it, having poorly timed flashbacks and becoming distant. This is concerning to me because he's one of the best characters on the show, we can't be losing him. We need him operating at 100%.
Also mentally unbalanced is Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie). With every episode, this kid gets more and more dubious, and it's starting to get out of hand. Now that we know Strand isn't a villain but rather a guy driven by love, and since the seafaring Connor and his people dropped the ball at being worth a damn, it's Chris who is emerging as the greatest villain this show has going on, murdering people, threatening them, and putting his family in danger. Someone needs to walk him out into a field to look at some flowers before his nonsense goes too far.
When he was introduced, Luis said something about death being the start of a new life, and that's a belief his mother holds as well. As Sicut Cervus neared its end, things got quite familiar. I'm sure Nick and Daniel weren't the only ones having flashbacks tonight, as Fear the Walking Dead season 2 suddenly became similar to The Walking Dead season 2. Of course, this concept goes back to the classics; like Herschel and Celia, people in George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD were also harboring zombies. I liked how this episode also echoed DAWN in the suggestion that zombies will find their way back to places that were important to them - in Romero's film, that was the mall, and Celia here expects Luis to be arriving at the estate.
It is odd that Fear is following so closely in the footsteps of The Walking Dead by doing the "keeping the dead" thing all over again, and I don't really buy that Nick is so impressionable that he would so quickly be persuaded into sharing Celia's point of view, but I am interested in seeing where this situation goes and how it will differ from the events at Herschel's farm.
People hoarding zombies is definitely something I can imagine happening in a zombie apocalypse, and these shows will always get a pass from me when they're directly reminding me of Romero. There were some quirky, oddball elements to this episode, but I still found it to be more enjoyable than the last couple episodes were.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: It may be Herschel's barn all over again, but the reveal of the caged zombies was a great "Oh shit" moment.
GORY GLORY: Nothing here really stood out to me as being particularly glorious, but it's always fun to watch the characters take down a horde of zombies, as they did with the parishioners.
FAVORITE SCENE: I loved the cold open at the church, with the preacher coming to the conclusion that God isn't responsible for the zombie apocalypse. What follows the sermon was great as well.
Season 2, Episode 7: Shiva
PLOT: The characters have arrived at a safe haven in Mexico, but their choices could ruin their chances of remaining safe for very long.
REVIEW: Midseason finales are always a chance for the powers-that-be behind a show to tear things asunder, shocking the audience and leaving viewers desperate to see the show's return. Tonight was Fear the Walking Dead's chance to do that with their season two midseason finale. How successful were they? Personally, I thought they handled the episode pretty well, especially given this show's track record of squandering its potential.
Speaking of squandered potential, we have Victor Strand (Colman Domingo), whose choice of how to handle the death of his boyfriend - and I believe he made the correct choice - has jeopardized the main characters' chances of remaining at their walled-in Mexico safe haven for very much longer. The shaky ground they're on is not completely Strand's fault, though. Some viewers have expressed the opinion that the leads on Fear are actually the villains of their own series, and... wow, the events of this episode go a long way toward proving their point. In fact, after this I think maybe we can all agree that we are following the bad guys on this show.
Not only do we have Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) going nuts and running off to take a small child hostage while his father Travis (Cliff Curtis) pursues him, and not only do we have Daniel (Ruben Blades) having a mental breakdown over lifelong guilt and the season one loss of his wife, we also have Madison (Kim Dickens) brewing a dangerous dislike toward Celia (Marlene Forte) because she doesn't like the way she interacts with Nick (Frank Dillane).
Celia has welcomed these people into her home, given them food and shelter. The place is walled in, they are safe here, even if they do disagree with Celia over how she views the walking dead. And yet, because of their own guilt and paranoia, they turn against their protectors. They become violent toward the people who are helping them. It's an interesting approach to center a show on the villains, and the realization that these are the bad guys makes it clear why the characters have been so tough to connect with. It's because several of them are not good people. At least some of them, like Chris, know how crappy they are and will admit it.
Daniel's storyline was the most interesting to me, while also being the most frustrating, because he's been one of the best characters from the start and I don't like seeing him crumble. I didn't like thinking that he might be making an exit from the show. I don't want him to be ruined like Strand was. We see flashbacks to one of Daniel's earliest memories, a very traumatic experience, and there was some incredible imagery there.
The episode built up to some shocking acts and decisions. One of the events would have me in mourning if showrunner Dave Erickson hadn't already blunted it by assuring viewers in an interview that we will see that certain character again. Not in the back end of season two, but they'll return in season three. The climax does set things up to be quite different in the remaining episodes of this season. Our one group is now divided into multiple groups, and it will be interesting to see how each of them finds their own way to survive.
Fear the Walking Dead's midseason finale was more low-key than the average midseason finale on The Walking Dead, like the show is more low-key than its companion series across the board, but it did deal some blows and shake things up. While I'm not desperate to see the show return in August, I will be tuning in when it comes back to see what happens next.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The image of the zombies moving through the dark countryside, shrouded in fog and smoke, fire burning in the background, and Nick walking among them.
GORY GLORY: That shot of Travis's foot was pretty gnarly. That's the best I can come up with for this one.
FAVORITE SCENE: Without giving too much away - the way the ignition of the fire was presented.
Season 2, Episode 8: Grotesque
PLOT: In the aftermath of the midseason finale, Nick takes a long, treacherous walk through the Mexico countryside.
REVIEW: I was optimistic when I started watching season 2 of Fear the Walking Dead, as I felt a companion series to The Walking Dead that takes place on the opposite side of the United States and is set at an earlier point in the zombie outbreak had potential to be a solid, entertaining show. It just had to find its footing. Although I'm interested in seeing what's going to happen, I go into the second half of season 2 with some trepidation, feeling at this point like I have been burned repeatedly by the show's characters and storytelling. I have to stop thinking about the concept's potential and meet the show on its own terms, and I'm not exactly enthusiastic about it continuing down the path it's been taking so far.
Speaking of traveling down a path, that's what this latest episode was all about, and I don't think Fear the Walking Dead is going to win over any of its detractors by delivering a midseason premiere that's a slowly paced examination of one man's poorly planned 70 mile walk through the Mexico countryside. Often coming across more like an indie arthouse film than an episode of a genre television series, Grotesque feels like the show makers boldly standing up to those who criticize the pace of Fear the Walking Dead and saying, "You think we're boring? You're damn right we're boring."
The man taking said boneheaded trek is Nick (Frank Dillane), having cut ties with his family after the disaster they brought about in the midseason finale. His journey is motivated by a desire to find others who sympathize with the walking dead as he does, but one thing quickly becomes very clear - a person needs more than a lack of fear for flesh-eating ghouls and an ability to walk among them (when coated with zombie guts) to survive in a zombie apocalypse. He may believe that he can't die, but Nick is not a skilled survivalist, and everything that can go wrong during his walk does go wrong. It's brutal, but it's something that would work better as the B plot of an episode rather than being the focus of an entire episode. When Grotesque was giving me long shots of Nick walking or sitting by a fire and contemplating the night, I felt like my time was being wasted.
Dull though it frequently was, the episode did occasionally flare up with interesting events, like a sequence in which wild dogs attack both Nick and a horde of walkers, or a scene where some scavengers prove to be so laughably stupid that they can't even handle mowing down zombies for fun. There is also an intriguing turn of events toward the end of the episode that introduces new characters and a new location that I'm looking forward to learning more about.
Peppered throughout the episode are also a few flashbacks to a time before the pilot, flashbacks that deal with the loss of Nick's father while giving glimpses of his relationship with Lexi Johnson as Gloria, who we know will become the first zombie we ever saw in the series. Getting to see more of Gloria is a nice touch, but I'm not sure what the point of these flashbacks are. What do they convey that couldn't have just been told to us through a couple lines of dialogue?
Grotesque felt like a filler episode to me, and didn't do anything to calm the apprehension I have about this series. In fact, it just continued to make its issues more apparent. Here's hoping there will be more to next week's episode.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Those dogs Nick ran into had a very bad attitude, and it was pretty cool when they started attacking the zombies that were also walking toward him. The dogs ripping into the walkers as the dead just kept moving forward, paying them no mind (for a little while), was a great visual.
GORY GLORY: There's a sequence where the walkers tear into a couple of morons that was presented in a way somewhat reminiscent of the gory feasts during the climaxes of DAWN OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE DEAD. The zombies tear into the torso of a screaming victim and leave him and his buddy such a mess that the imagery truly does live up to the title of the episode.
FAVORITE SCENE: My favorite scene in here comes right before the zombie feast, when Nick doesn't break character while moving among the walking dead even though zombies all around him are taking shots to the head.
Season 2, Episode 9: Los Muertos
PLOT: Nick gets a crash course in how his new safe haven functions while his former companions scavenge a hotel.
REVIEW: Fear the Walking Dead's season 2 midseason premiere, Grotesque, ended on a promising note for the character who has essentially emerged as this series' troubled heroic lead, Frank Dillane as Nick. He found a new place to stay, joining a community that shares his view that the walking dead shouldn't be treated as monsters. As Los Muertos begins, we find that this community takes their kinder view of the dead very far - so far that they even feed those who are near death to the walkers.
This would be too much for most, a sight that would have them plotting to take their leave of this place. But not for Nick. This isn't an episode about him bailing on the place he just found; he's sticking around to learn how all of this works. He may express some disbelief while interacting with community member Luciana (Danay Garcia) and he may break some rules here and there, but Nick has previously proven to be very impressionable, so it's no surprise that he soon appears to be buying into everything these people say by the end of the episode, which includes a fervent sermon by community leader/resident pharmacist Alejandro (Paul Calderon) about delivering themselves to death.
The core belief of this community is that the zombie plague is just a passing thing, a cleansing of the world, a test to endure with the reward of living in a better place on the other side of it. The rhetoric these people spew is going to get old real quick... in fact, they're already starting to grate on my nerves after just one episode.
Los Muertos is primarily focused on Nick working his way into the community, but lest you forget that we were following other characters on this show as well, there is some catching up with other members of the fractured group we started out with - Nick's mother Madison (Kim Dickens), his sister Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Colman Domingo as Victor Strand, and Mercedes Mason as Ofelia Salazar. As Madison reels from the loss of her son and husband (and her husband's son from a previous marriage, but that kid's not much of a loss) in the great group split, this bunch takes refuge in an abandoned hotel, which actually has great potential as a safe haven in the event of a zombie apocalypse. A hotel would be one of the cooler places you could take over for yourself at the end of the world - not quite up there on the same level of cool as taking over a shopping mall, but it has its own appeal.
Of course, it wouldn't be an episode of Fear the Walking Dead if there weren't passages that feel like they're wasting your time and sapping your energy, and for me those moments in Los Muertos came as Madison and Strand sat in the hotel bar, getting drunk and chatting. Madison goes on a bit about Nick's late father, the circumstances of his death, the fact that Nick inherited a darkness from him... I was over this whole "history of Nick's father" element before it was even introduced in Grotesque flashbacks, and I continue to not care about this stuff in the slightest.
Fear the Walking Dead's characters are also prone to doing stupid things, and here we have Nick and Strand both having dumbass attacks. Nick has a noble goal in mind, wanting to comfort a little girl who lost her father, but shoplifting and pissing off a gang of men armed with guns and machetes is not the brightest way to go about doing that. He may use his knowledge of drugs to talk his way out of the situation, but I have to think he made a big mistake in that moment. And Strand, just because you don't see zombies doesn't mean that zombies aren't around. You don't play piano in the land of the dead. Especially when you're just making noise with the keys for the hell of it.
Then again, Strand's stupidity does stir up a whole lot of walkers, resulting in the promise that we might get some good action in the next episode. Action is always welcome on this show, so Strand, go ahead and make dumb decisions like that every episode or two.
Largely dealing with new characters who aren't getting on my good side and old characters who aren't doing much of interest, Los Muertos didn't work very well for me overall. Here's hoping the things that did occur in this episode will have some awesome pay-off in the next.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There was an absolutely awesome moment in this episode, when Alicia realizes that the hotel rooms are crawling with zombies, watching them tumble from balconies and pick themselves back up after hitting the ground.
GORY GLORY: Some bloody zombies aside, there wasn't much in the way of gore in Los Muertos. I suppose the best it had to offer was Nick smearing himself in zombie blood once again, something that happens way too often on this show.
FAVORITE SCENE: My favorite part of the episode came in the closing moments, when the hotel group finds themselves surrounded by the walking dead. My enthusiasm may not be high for Fear the Walking Dead at this point, but those last couple minutes make me wish I was already watching next week's episode.
Season 2, Episode 10: Do Not Disturb
PLOT: Travis and Chris traverse the countryside while Alicia fights to reach her companions in a hotel full of walkers.
REVIEW: When the previous episode of Fear the Walking Dead ended with a handful of the show's characters in a dire situation, trapped in a hotel and surrounded by zombies, it got my hopes up that this week's episode would be packed with exciting zombie action. But, being familiar with the show I'm watching, I knew to temper my expectations. The preview for Do Not Disturb did give glimpses of zombie action, but mixed in with that were shots of Travis (Cliff Curtis) and his son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie), characters we haven't caught up with since they split off in their own direction in the mid-season finale. So I assumed that even if the episode did feature some exciting zombie action, it would also, in true Fear fashion, buzzkill that excitement with somber cutaways to Travis and Chris.
Even with tempered expectations, the first half of this episode was less exciting than I anticipated. We left Madison (Kim Dickens) and Strand (Colman Domingo) in a room packed with zombies, but we don't get to see what happened in that room. Instead, we follow Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) through the hotel situation, and she starts off holed up in a safe room, waiting for her chance to spring into action. Meanwhile, the Travis and Chris cutaways are the primary focus - chats around a campfire, Chris receiving a driving lesson. I don't care whether this kid lives or dies, let alone whether or not he can drive on an empty road.
However, as the episode went along the Travis and Chris plotline began to become more interesting than I thought it would be. The father and son meet up with a trio of fellow Americans, some young dude-bros for Chris to bond with, and their shared journey takes them to a very dark place. Travis left the others in hopes of salvaging the humanity left in his son, but it continues to look like Chris might become this series' first great villain. If Travis doesn't perform a mercy killing by the end of the season.
This new group that Travis and Chris fell in with - Brandon, Derek, and Baby James - were an intriguing enough bunch, and at first I was suspicious of them. I was in The Walking Dead mode, not trusting outsiders - it had momentarily lapsed from my mind that it's the main characters on Fear the Walking Dead who are always the cause of trouble. Others should be wary of them, not vice versa.
Once that story was properly rolling, the hotel zombie action finally got going, with Alicia wading through the horde in search of her mother, Strand, and Ofelia (Mercedes Mason), and in the process meeting another new character: Karen Bethzabe as hotel employee Elena. Not only does Elena prove adept at handling the dead, she is also a person to beware of - she locked an entire wedding party in a ballroom once zombies showed up on the scene, sacrificing a lot of lives in an effort to keep the outbreak contained. If she is made a series regular, she's going to fit right in with our other "heroes".
There wasn't as much action as I would have hoped, but what was there had some impressive elements to it, both in terms of spectacle and also how Alicia is stepping up to be a badass. If she continues down this path, she could surpass Nick (Frank Dillane) as Fear's golden child.
Do Not Disturb wasn't the action fest I wanted, but it wasn't the downer I expected. With some excitement mixed with some interesting (and disturbing) twists and turns, this was definitely the best episode since the show returned to the air to finish out the second season.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There are two contenders for this category, and they're both in the running for Favorite Scene as well. For Best Zombie Moment, I'll go with the scene that shows the zombies as more of a threat - the one in which Alicia finds herself trapped on a hotel balcony, far above the ground, nothing keeping a room full of zombies from reaching her but a sliding glass door that is cracking from the weight of the horde pressing against it. That's a nightmare worthy scenario.
GORY GLORY: There's plenty of head stabbings and a hell of a headshot in this episode, but I'll give the best gore moment to the wedding flashback. Sissy Spacek's daughter Schuyler Fisk shows up just long enough to get her face ripped open.
FAVORITE SCENE: With walkers closing in on Alicia in a hallway, she has to pry open the elevator doors and jump into the shaft, catching onto the cable. As she hangs there, the zombies continue advancing on her - and go tumbling down the shaft. It's a wonderful "dumb dead" moment.
Season 2, Episode 11: Pablo & Jessica
PLOT: The hotel action continues while Nick puts his drug knowledge to use at the Colonia.
REVIEW: The eleventh episode of Fear the Walking Dead's second season picks up from the cliffhanger ending of episode nine, answering the question that last week's episode left hanging: What did Madison (Kim Dickens) and Strand (Colman Domingo) do to escape the zombie-filled hotel bar where they were trapped? The answer is, they really didn't do all that much before falling back on a zombie survival tactic that is hugely over-used on this show. They coated themselves with zombie gore so the walkers wouldn't recognize them as regular humans / potential meals. Coating yourself in zombie guts to get around in a world overrun by the walking dead is a clever idea and all, but it's one that has been run deep into the ground at this point. I'd be quite happy to go a stretch of several episodes without seeing people wipe walker blood on themselves.
Thankfully, that's only a stepping stone on the way to the most interesting aspect of this episode, which is when Madison, Strand, and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) work to bring the two separate groups of people they're inhabiting the hotel with together so they can clear out the zombie infestation and take over the hotel for good. I like this storyline not only because taking post-apocalyptic residence in a three building, seventeen floor hotel is almost up there with taking over a mall DAWN OF THE DEAD-style in my "cool book", but also because it's nice to see our main characters working to bring people together. On a show where it so often feels like we're watching the villains, it gives me a glimmer of hope to see them conducting themselves like decent human beings.
The two groups in the hotel do have reason enough not to get along. Represented by Andres Londono as Oscar and Brenda Strong as Irene, the surviving guests hold hotel employee Elena (Karen Bethzabe) responsible for the deaths of many of their friends and family, including newlywed bride Jessica. Jessica was already toast before Elena made the decision to lock the guests in a death trap, but even so, it's going to take a lot for people to let that slide. This should provide some interesting tension among characters as the show moves forward.
Meanwhile at the Colonia el Porvenir, recovering addict Nick (Frank Dillane) is gaining acceptance among the community by using his knowledge of drugs as a way to clean up his own mess. A couple episodes ago, Nick got on the bad side of a group of very dangerous men, and now the community leaders are happy with him for buying them time with those men through the actions he takes in this episode. But how much time could he possibly be buying? That scenario is a ticking time bomb... And I don't mind, as honestly I'll be fine with it if and when the Colonia collapses. These people have a grating outlook on the dead, and I don't like the story they're building up about Alejandro (Paul Calderon) maybe, possibly, if he's not full of it, being immune to zombie bites. I don't want to seem too unyielding in my view of zombies, but okay, I am - I don't like the thought that anyone could be immune to a zombie bite. I'm really hoping Alejandro will be exposed as a liar, right around the time that he gets bitten and infected.
Not even the romance that's starting to bloom between Nick and the Colonia's resident badass Luciana (Danay Garcia) as she deals with the loss of her brother Pablo is enough to get me to care about what's going on with this community. Wipe it out and let's focus on the hotel stuff.
Overall, I found Pablo & Jessica to be a very middle-of-the-road episode of this series. It wasn't as bad as some of the episodes that have preceded it have been, but it also wasn't exceptional. Like Madison and Strand's idea to rub on some zombie guts, this felt like it was just a stepping stone to other things - namely, bigger and better things in the form of a hotel residency. That's an intriguing, fun idea, and I hope this show will be latching onto it and running with it for a while. I don't expect a hotel residency to last too long, the place draws too much attention to itself and is a prime target for scavengers, but it could be entertaining while it lasts. Pablo & Jessica isn't great itself, but it has kernels of promise for the future.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The survivors' realization that it would be easier to herd the zombies out of the hotel rather than clear the place floor-by-floor led to a decent sequence in which they walk the dead out into a riptide.
GORY GLORY: There was a whole lot of bashing and stabbing walkers in the head, but nothing jaw-dropping. Madison and Strand giving themselves a zombie gutbath was the goriest moment, but I don't want to honor that repetitious element of the show.
FAVORITE SCENE: The Best Zombie Moment, the herding of the zombies into the sea, has to get this honor as well.
Season 2, Episode 12: Pillar of Salt
PLOT: Troubles at both the Colonia el Porvenir and the Rosarito Beach Hotel seem to set members of the two communities on a collision course.
REVIEW: One of my favorite things about George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD is the fact that Romero not only shows us the steps of how his characters take over a shopping mall during the zombie apocalypse, but he also then takes time to show them enjoying the fruits of their labor, hanging out in the mall and having fun in its various places of business. In a minor way, this episode of Fear the Walking Dead does the same thing - we've seen Madison (Kim Dickens), Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Strand (Colman Domingo), and their new companions take over the Rosarito Beach Hotel, and now we get to see them enjoying it. They don't just have to stay inside and have drinks, either. They can even go outside to the beach for some fishing and surfing. We don't get to see a whole lot of this before things go south at the hotel, but it was appealing to me as it was happening.
Even after the Rosarito group hits a bump in the road, though, things are looking promising for the future. With Madison stepping up as leader of the community and laying out some rules, specifically rules about in-fighting at the hotel, it looks like they have a shot at making things last a while at the beach hotel, and I hope they do. It doesn't seem like a safe place to be at for very long, but I want them to see it through for as long as possible.
The survivors at the Colonia el Porvenir get their time in the spotlight as well, but that place is a total bore, even with the trouble Nick (Frank Dillane) has gotten them in with his dunderheaded drug deal with nearby criminals. It's increasingly obvious that the days are numbered for at least one of these communities the show is following, and it really needs to be the Colonia that falls. It has to be. Community leader Alejandro (Paul Calderon) and his "I survived a zombie bite" nonsense and his sermons have got to go.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record in these reviews, having to reiterate my distaste for things like the Colonia storyline and the overuse of the "zombies won't attack you if you mask your scent with zombie guts" survival method (which gets used again here! Every damn episode!), but these are the things it's giving me week by week, and it's not like this show presents all that many interesting new aspects in any given episode.
Since the main characters split in different directions at the end of the mid-season finale, it looked like the separate paths they took led them to places that were quite far from each other. Viewers who were looking forward to seeing them continue down those separate paths will probably be disappointed by Pillar of Salt, because when one of the Rosarito inhabitants runs into some serious trouble it becomes clear that the characters aren't as far-flung as it may have appeared. Seeking medical supplies, Madison ends up at the market run by the same criminals Nick is having issues with, and it isn't long before she realizes her baby boy is within miles of her set-up. It's looking like the characters may all be reunited by the season finale, which is surprising to me. I thought they would stay separated for a while longer. As long as this reunion means the collapse of the Colonia and continued success for the Rosarito, I'm fine with it.
One character who might not be reuniting with the others any time soon is Ofelia (Mercedes Mason), who we finally catch up with here after she abandoned Madison and the others without a care a couple episodes back. Ofelia does seem to be heading far away from the rest of the characters, and she's having flashbacks while she goes. Flashbacks to her mom and a would-be fiancé. I don't know what sort of pay-off there might be to these flashbacks, but at this point they mean about as much to me as Nick's flashbacks to the death of his father - absolutely nothing. I don't care about these things.
Like last week's episode, Pillar of Salt feels like more of a stepping stone than anything else. The community building moments aside, it's not a particularly interesting or satisfying episode on its own, but it's clearly moving toward something bigger. With just three episodes left in the season, those bigger things can't be too far off, and hopefully they'll be more entertaining when they arrive.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Way too often this show puts me in the position of having to say something positive about their repetitious scenes of people moving through zombie hordes while covered in walker guts. There's such a scene at the beginning of this episode, and since it's the biggest zombie moment in this episode I have to mention it in this category, but it's out of necessity, not because I was wowed by seeing this scenario play out for the umpteenth time.
GORY GLORY: Not much to choose from here, but Ofelia does pull off a nice walker kill with a claw hammer.
FAVORITE SCENE: The scene which provides the hilarious moment where Madison hears of a ratty-haired gringo who brings people drugs and immediately knows it's a description of her son.
Season 2, Episode 13: Date of Death
PLOT: When Travis shows up at the gates of the Rosarito Beach Hotel alone, flashbacks show what happened during his final days with Chris.
REVIEW: Usually when a piece of zombie entertainment features a horde pressing itself against the gates of a place, reaching between the bars and making a racket, that horde is a bunch of zombies hungry for human flesh. On Fear the Walking Dead, we have a horde of desperate people seeking help and being turned down because, once again, one of the main characters made a stupid decision and has endangered the lives of others because of it. Wanting to be reunited with her ratty-haired, drug-providing son Nick, Madison (Kim Dickens) switched on the lights at the Rosarito Beach Hotel, the place that she and her companions just recently took over and cleared of walkers. Nick wasn't around to see those lights, but plenty of other people were. Now they want in... and even though these people could certainly and easily fit inside the hotel, there are other things to consider before people can be let in. So these people are stuck outside the gate, pleading. Hope dangled in front of their faces and snatched away by one of our heroes.
Lest the show stir up too much (more) hate for its leads by focusing on the plight of the people outside, the episode begins to spin a different story when Madison's boyfriend Travis (Cliff Curtis) shows up at the gate. Alone. Travis and his son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) had split from Madison and the others in the mid-season finale so Travis could give Chris all his attention and try to pull his son back from the precipice of becoming a serial killer. As the episode Do Not Disturb showed, that was easier said than done - that episode ended with Chris murdering a farmer. That was the last time we saw Travis and Chris together. Where is Chris now?
Date of Death is the story of Travis and Chris's last days together, and I was shocked. Not necessarily by the events of those days, but by the fact that Travis and Chris's storyline turned out to be so interesting. Unlike Travis, I wrote Chris off a long time ago, so I didn't expect much from them once they left the original group. To my surprise, I wasn't bored and frustrated when we get glimpses of their experiences, but instead fascinated. Travis's refusal to give up on humanity, his struggle to save his son while Chris continues to pull away, was very compelling stuff to me. Chris has a view on the post-zombie-apocalypse world that is dangerous, believing that there is no right or wrong anymore and that killing is always the best option. If someone is in your way, good or bad, they're to be killed. If they're dead weight, even if just from an injury that they can heal from, they're to be killed.
Chris's viewpoint is shared by the friends he made in the Do Not Disturb episode, Brandon (Kelly Blatz) and Derek (Kenny Wormald), and might even be shared by their pal Baby James (Israel Broussard), if only he weren't the one trying to heal from a gunshot to the leg. These guys seemed okay when they were first introduced, but this episode proves them to be a bunch of scumbags. If they want to get on the road so badly, I don't understand why they couldn't just leave James behind to fend for himself as he recuperates rather than contemplate executing him. There's even an explanation given and I still don't understand, but that's something Travis doesn't understand, either. I'm on Travis's side here all the way around.
For me, Date of Death was one of the best and most interesting episodes we've gotten so far in the second season of Fear the Walking Dead. I was invested in watching the Travis and Chris story play out, interested in seeing how the situation at the Rosarito gate would be resolved, and satisfied with the conclusions. Of course, they also slipped in some information I didn't care about - I don't know how the death of Madison's ex is relevant to anything going on - but that was minor and just served to provide a dramatic moment between Madison and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey).
It's odd, this was a highlight of the season and yet there wasn't even any zombie action.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: This category is not applicable for this episode.
GORY GLORY: The gore here was provided by James's nasty leg wound and the attempt to doctor it.
FAVORITE SCENE: When Chris comes to deliver food to the barn where Travis is trying to protect James. Like the Rosarito lights coming on, there's a glimmer of hope that is then snatched away.
Season 2, Episode 14: Wrath
PLOT: The Colonia el Porvenir begins to crumble as peace goes out the window at the Rosarito Beach Hotel.
REVIEW: And there was much rejoicing, as the penultimate episode of Fear the Walking Dead's second season delivered two of the things I most wanted out of this show.
The smile began to creep across my face when Derek (Kenny Wormald) and Brandon (Kelly Blatz), those douchebag dude-bros that Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) was last seen choosing over his desperate father Travis (Cliff Curtis), showed up at the Rosarito Beach Hotel with a tale of their poor dead buddy who crashed their truck - a 16-year-old who didn't have a license yet. Now that scene several episodes ago where Travis was giving Chris driving lessons doesn't seem so pointless. I felt like I didn't need to see Chris learning how to drive when it was presented to me, but now it has purpose, as his lack of driving experience has played directly into his apparent demise. Sorry, Fear the Walking Dead, I thought you were wasting my time with that one, but you were actually just building up to a crowd pleasing revelation.
Chris was both a frustrating and captivating character. Clearly mentally off-balance, he could have become a great villain, he could have gone on to do some very sick and twisted things... But he was also incredibly annoying, and I wanted him dead. On one hand, I feel like his death has come too early. In one episode, Travis loses his grip on the kid, and in the next the kid is dead. Even if Chris wasn't destined to achieve villain status, they still could have milked his turn to the dark side a while longer. That is the leitmotif on this show; they'll milk the quiet moments, but fast forward through the most promising stuff. See the quick resolution of the pirate problem earlier this season. But on the other hand, Chris deserved to die, so good riddance.
Someone who obviously disagrees with my view on Chris is Travis, and he disagrees so intensely that it causes some major trouble at the hotel refuge his girlfriend Madison (Kim Dickens) has helped secure.
Meanwhile, at the Colonia el Porvenir, the show gave me that other thing I was hoping for - the exposure of community leader Alejandro (Paul Calderon) as a fraud. This guy has been grating on my nerves for several episodes now, spewing his nonsense, claiming to be immune to zombie bites, and he was brought down off his pedestal in glorious fashion tonight.
It doesn't look like the Colonia is going to make it past the end of this season, despite a valiant effort to save it with drugs, and I'll be glad to get out of that place.
Wrath was all about giving me what I wanted, so I have to rank it as one of the best episodes of season two. The Colonia crumbling, Chris dying, Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) stopping by to defend her crown as Claw Hammer Queen, Travis's titular wrath, this was a fun one to watch. For once, an episode didn't offer up anything that made me ask "Why is this happening? How this could this possibly be important?" It got to the point, and was all the better for it.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: When that walker clamped its teeth down on Alejandro's arm, I felt like cheering.
GORY GLORY: The walker ripping off a victim's nose was pretty cool, but it was even cooler to see Nick (Frank Dillane), always such a zombie sympathizer, have to off a walker by sticking his fingers through its eyes.
FAVORITE SCENE: The Chris flashback.
Season 2, Episode 15: North
PLOT: Communities cease to exist and characters are set adrift in the season two finale.
REVIEW: Damn these characters. This show gives them opportunity after opportunity to redeem themselves. They make great progress and do some cool things, and yet eventually they always manage to destroy everything they touch.
Madison (Kim Dickens), Strand (Colman Domingo), Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), they had a good thing going. A very promising thing. They helped take over the Rosarito Beach Hotel, which could have been a great setting for future episodes. They were building a community, establishing rules, welcoming in new people. There were some uneasy relationships within this community that could have made for some interesting dramatic storylines. But then Madison's boyfriend Travis (Cliff Curtis) shows up and an act of vengeance sends everything spiraling out of control. Our "heroes" cannot keep their true villainous nature buried for long. Suddenly they're hurting and killing people left and right, and the woman who decreed "If anyone raises a hand to another, they're out" - a top-notch rule to have in such a scenario - is getting herself banished. It's all smooth sailing until your boyfriend crushes a skull under his boot heel.
They dangled the promise of the Rosarito Beach Hotel in front of me just to snatch it away after a couple episodes. I feel like Deputy Winston in CABIN FEVER: "You just f*cked up the whole party, you f*cking idiot!"
I have to say, after watching the actions of his family in this episode, you really do start to develop some posthumous sympathy for Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie). Sure, that kid was awful, he was way too willing to murder innocent people. But the things his family gave him so much grief over, they're on par with the things they do themselves in this episode. Why does Fear the Walking Dead insist on making its lead characters so horrible? Why should viewers want to continue following these people? Is redemption even possible for them at this point?
There's no question about it now, he has no competition: Nick (Frank Dillane) is the hero of this show. The ratty-haired drug supplier may be a bit of a pain and/or an annoyance at times, but he's the only one who can find some peace with the people he interacts with, and who often commits noble acts. While the ailing Alejandro (Paul Calderon) is willing to let his people die in a futile fight for the doomed Colonia el Porvenir, Nick steps up with a plan to save them. And yeah, it involves something that this show does way too often (if you missed the "zombie guts" trick in the previous episode, rest assured that it comes back big time here), but at least he's trying to save people.
Fear the Walking Dead... The showrunners on this series make some strange choices. This is a baffling, frustrating show. It's one that can get you emotionally involved not because you care about the characters but because it repeatedly sends you reeling with thoughts of "What is this show doing, and why?" It builds you up to let you down again and again. Watching it is almost a masochistic endeavor.
Apparently I am a television masochist, because I am on board to see this show through to the sure-to-be bitter end. I will continue subjecting myself to these characters and their awful actions. I want to see what happens to them as they continue down the road. And if what happens to them should happen to be that they all die, I won't be shedding any tears. I don't think this show would suffer from killing off some of its main characters. In fact, it would probably be a blessing.
Season three is a guarantee, and here's hoping that they'll take some time to re-think their approach and their characters during the hiatus between seasons. If they want to, they could still turn this show around and make it a lot more enjoyable and satisfying.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: We didn't get a bloody feast out of it, but the scene in which Alejandro sets the walker horde loose on the people invading the Colonia was nice. If only the Colonia zombies had proceeded to eat Madison and Travis when they showed up.
GORY GLORY: There's an emergency brain surgery in this episode that was definitely designed to gross you out.
FAVORITE SCENE: Nick trying to be a hero and leading the gut-coated people of the Colonia north.
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