Fear The Walking Dead aired the first of its final six episodes today on AMC and AMC+ and I have to say, I was not disappointed. The midseason premiere lived up to all my expectations. An exposition-laden hour of melodrama, wild coincidences, bad acting and even worse writing is exactly what we’ve come to expect from this show, and even though Morgan is gone, it appears the showrunners are simply giving Madison (Kim Dickens) a good chunk of his personality and motives—aka, she wants to build a new community for everyone to be safe in, something that Morgan tried and failed to do countless times since he arrived on Fear.
Strand (Colman Domingo) is back after sitting out the first half of the season. It appears he’s once again successfully built (or helped build) a thriving community over the intervening years. All of that—including his new identity as a compassionate, German-speaking guy named Anton—is threatened when an out-of-breath Madison shows up on his doorstep, a long ways away from PADRE and pursued by both friend (Daniel) and foe (a group that appears to be comprised of both enemies of PADRE and led by Troy Otto, back from the dead).
Hey, it’s good to see Troy (Daniel Sharman)!
I’m reminded of better days, of the glory days of Season 3 when this show wasn’t just good, but even better than the main show for a brief moment. Season 3 remains one of the high points of the entire TWD universe, ranking up there with the best seasons of the original show, painting a human conflict with dynamic, complex and sympathetic characters rather than the cartoon villains that came after. Troy was one of the best characters in the show. It’s too soon to say, but I’m afraid he’s just another cartoon villain now.
This episode spent a lot of time on Anton’s new life and on Victor Strand trying, pathetically, to keep his secrets when Madison shows up, despite his “son” Klaus and new lover, Frank, immediately suspecting him. The one nice moment in all of this was Victor hugging Madison and crying, but that was quickly dashed by her jumping right to accusations (no diplomacy whatsoever, Madison!) and Victory jumping right to denials. None of that felt natural. Then again, the way people interact with each other on this show almost never feels natural.
In any case, eventually we get to Victor and Madison trying to escape a bunch of zombies (who have superpowers like super-stealth now) and they make it to a big room and Madison is trying to shut the doors and she says “It won’t hold!” even though they probably could have killed the zombies at the door and at least tried to shut and barricade it instead of running into the room and knocking bookshelves down. Victor even stabs a zombie in the chest with his saber, which makes me wonder how any of these people have survived this long.
For instance, how has this perfect, idyllic community survived completely unscathed all these years? Of course, it only takes Madison showing up for a single day for it all to come crashing down.
They’re captured and taken back to Troy Otto, who has come back from the dead and magically gotten all the way from Texas to—I guess?—Georgia. I mean, I assume that we’re near(ish) to PADRE since Madison showed up. Troy wants to find PADRE to use it as a home for his people (ugh, just shoot me now) but Madison says “You’ll never find it!” (Shoot me, please, I beg you!)
But why does Troy want PADRE when there’s a perfectly lovely spot right here to make his home, defended only by a bunch of soft German tourists? This place seems way nicer than PADRE!
Just as Troy is about to brain Strand with a hammer, the doors burst open and Daniel and June and Sherry and all the other New Bird People show up with guns. “Drop your weapon!” It’s just like the midseason finale when people kept showing up out of nowhere to stop the bad guys (or the good guys or whatever). That happened like eight times in one episode and now it’s continuing in the midseason premiere. Why Daniel (Ruben Blades) doesn’t just put a bullet in Troy’s brain (something Old Daniel would do without blinking) is beyond me. They have the guns and the numbers but they end up retreating and just . . . letting Troy and his people go to fight another day?
Are the people who write this show on actual drugs? Any other explanation is too unkind to print.
Watch my video review of this episode below.
In any case, here we are with a setup for the rest of the season. We have a big bad, a reinvented Strand and a brave new leader for our slimmed-down crew.
Is this episode as bad as the first half of Season 8? To be fair, no it’s not. The absence of Morgan is really welcome and the return of Troy is as well, even though I’m worried that they’ll completely butcher his character. Getting back to a smaller cast—though Sarah, Wendell, the Rabbi and lord knows how many other smaller characters were all apparently killed offscreen according to what Strand told Madison—is also a step in the right direction.
But it’s still absolute garbage, by far the worst-written show in this franchise. Mostly it’s just people standing around emoting at one another with some of the cheesiest dialogue imaginable. Everyone is constantly trying to make up for the bad things they’ve done or build a safe place for people or make some grand, idiotic gesture. None of it sounds at all like how real people talk with one another in the real world.
And yes, there were walkie-talkies and Madison’s oxygen nonsense, and yes I will miss this show and its stupid, inane BS when it’s gone.
P.S. Early on in the episode, they actually used footage from Season 6, Episode 11 frame-for-frame out of what I can only describe as sheer laziness, perhaps the laziest bit of editing I’ve ever seen and a new low for Fear, though I wasn’t sure that was even possible.
What did you think?
Scattered Thoughts:
- Why didn’t Madison call out Troy for his BS about her killing his family when Troy was the primary agent of chaos in Season 3 and his actions directly led to so much of what wrong at the Ranch?
- I’m confused by the Klaus/Madison scenes and how quickly they bonded and pretty much all of the bit with them leaving together. What gives? Also, why so many kids? Why the constant crutching on kids. Every single TWD show at this point is constantly obsessed with having kids to rescue or protect or kidnap. Stop it!
- Also, why is Strand so worried about them finding out his real name. It’s not like they can Google it on their walkie-talkies and look up his past misdeeds! He could just say “Yeah, I used to go by that name but I changed it because reasons” and move on. Good grief the manufactured tension here is too much!
- I’ve been told there’s more recycled footage than I noticed, including shots of the chicken coop from the stadium in Season 4. Budget cuts are the only explanation.
- Lots of Alicia teases and I admit I’m a little torn. Would be nice if Madison could reunite with one of her kids at least, but I think Alycia Debnam-Carey should stay far, far away from this show.
- All the German was ridiculous (especially on the heels of French-forward Daryl Dixon). Surely being in America, everyone would have migrated to English and not the other way around?
- The part where Madison and Strand are holding lanterns hiding behind tiny trees while not moving and still manage to successfully take cover from gunfire? Alrighty then!
- When Troy says he killed Alicia and Madison kind of roars at him and lunges for him I actually laughed out loud. Horrible. Just embarrassingly bad. Also, let her smash his head in! Why stop her? WHY DO THEY NOT KILL HIM OR AT LEAST TAKE HIM PRISONER???
- Speaking of Troy, why did he tell Strand that he helped Madison destroy the Ranch? Strand had nothing to do with the Ranch! Also, Troy didn’t kill Ophelia. Are they just not remembering what actually happened in Season 3?
- Danay Garcia directed this one. Too bad she has such terrible writing to work with. Too bad Luciana still gets the short end of the stick. What a total waste of a character. Still pisses me off.
- One thing I will say is that Troy being back makes me wonder what could have been if they hadn’t handed this series off to Ian and Andrew and kept going with the setup at the end of Season 3 and the dam and Frank Dillane maybe not leaving etc. etc. etc. We really could have had a decent show on our hands instead of, well, whatever the hell this is.
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