*Spoilers Ahead*
It’s the penultimate episode of Fear The Walking Dead‘s short first season and things are escalating and surly heading towards the dystopia we see in the opening of the original series.
After the ending to last week’s episode, tensions between our characters and the military have gotten pretty high and while Travis decides to go and use his connection to Lt. Moyers, Daniel has a different idea to get the info he wants.
Daniel gets his daughter to bring her solider boyfriend to him and he decides to get the information from him at any cost. The reveal of Daniel’s true history this week was easily one of the highlights as Ruben Blades continues to shine and show why he deserves all the praise he’s been getting.
That said it isn’t all Daniel this week as Travis manages to convince Moyers to take him to the facility where they took his people. They never make it there but Cliff Curtis gets to showcase some great acting skills, particularly in the scene where he’s asked to shoot a nearby zombie by Moyers. Travis can’t go through with it and Moyers makes his point about why the military is needed. Of course the army doesn’t seem to be handling this very well either if the stadium full of zombies seen at the end is anything to go by.
Elsewhere, Liza continues to work at the military hospital and ends up being the one to make sure Daniel’s wife doesn’t turn. It’s nice to see the show providing us a look at how out of it’s depth the military seems to be with this but it feels like it all could have worked better with a bit more time to flesh everything out.
Ultimately, that might end up being the problem of this season, too much is happening in too little a span of time. Fear has already been renewed for a 15-episode second season and yet it seems on track to lose everything that has set it apart from it’s parent series. What attracted me to this show was the look at something not seen in The Walking Dead, the fall of civilization. The show has breezed through that and seems poised to get right into the apocalypse part. What will be left after that? The show will just be The Walking Dead with parking lots and skyscrapers replacing forests and farms.
In the span of 5 episodes the show has gone through about a full season’s worth of potential material and, ultimately I think, suffered for it as a result. I understand that zombies are the bread and butter of this franchise but there’s still ways to show them off while continuing a story like this. In a way, this all feels like a course correct after the slow pace of the pilot but it sways too much in the direction of giving us interesting scenarios and ideas but not having the proper time to make good on them.
So here we are, on the cusp of the finale and with everything looking to come crashing down around our heroes. That’s not a bad place to lead up to in a finale it’s just a shame that it doesn’t feel well earned.
Bits ‘n Pieces
- Didn’t mention it in the main review but we’re introduced to, according to Wikipedia as his name is never said, Strand this week and he is already more interesting than half the cast. If this is anything like the original show that means he’ll be dead before the end of next season.
- I feel bad just mentioning it here but Alicia and Chris get a little “subplot” where they trash a mansion and try on the rich owner’s clothes. Yeah.
- I will say one more thing about the above. It’s amazing that all those dresses somehow perfectly fit Alicia.
- Also not sure why the show decided to just tell us Moyers and most of his men died when they could have shown us in various ways.
- “That kid turns, it’s your ass.” “You think he’ll stop there?”
Jesse Swanson is a would-be writer, podcaster and funny guy who covers TV shows of all shapes and sizes. You can find him on Twitter @JesseSwanson