Stylistically Good But Lacking Excitement
The most frustrating part of Fear The Walking Dead is just how much squandered potential this show has. There’s glimmers of brilliance here, but it’s hidden in the usual myriad of illogical character choices, forced plot points dictated by the script and a distinct lack of tension. It’s such a shame too and a lot of this is thanks to the lack of ambition with the large central cast of characters here. After last week’s episode, we pick up with Morgan on a stand-alone adventure in an abandoned mall. The episode itself feels inconsequential and sees Morgan, Dwight and Grace heading in to find one of their own, currently AWOL. Unfortunately, their voices bring out the walkers who swarm beneath them. While Daniel plays music down the radio to get their attention, back inside the mall Morgan and Dwight wake up Grace and discuss the possibility that Logan is nearby. On an open channel, Dwight tells Morgan that he’s heading south, where he’s ambushed by someone working for Logan. With a gun to his head, Dwight coolly tells him he intended them to follow him, before being knocked out with the butt of his gun. Back in the mall, our characters continue to make illogical choices as Morgan leads the horde of walkers away from Urgent Care using a remote controlled car. It works well too until Grace decides to try and kill one of the zombies and crunches on something under her foot. Inevitably, they turn and chase her, forcing them to hold out in a nearby shop. As they barricade the doors shut the pace slows, allowing for some characterisation between them while Dwight is held captive, later managing to escape his captor. Navigating the pitch black hallways, Grace and Morgan manage to turn the generator back on, only to find themselves confronted with an alarm ringing as they try to enter the shop. As walkers surround them, Morgan holds them off while Grace heads up the escalator. As they reach the top, walkers pour forward, prompting Grace to reverse the direction and send them hurtling back down again. Breathing a sigh of relief, they make it to the security room where they spy Chuck, the man they’re after, on one of the monitors. As they make it to his location, Morgan and Grace learn he’s badly injured. Making his passing more bearable, they allow him to see the stars one more time before we cut to the next day and see his grave being smoothed over. Grace decides not to know about the baby, leaving Urgent Care for now, and heading back to the others after a round on the carousel. It’s here we see a final montage, a segment that sees Dwight take the plunge and have a shave while Morgan bids his final, emotional farewells to Grace. Stylistically, Fear The Walking Dead actually delivers a pretty good episode here; a fun little bottle episode that allows for some good characterisation to shine between Morgan and Grace. It’s just a shame that it’s placed in the worst possible position in this 16 episode season. It almost feels like the show has run out of steam after its mid-season finale, meandering along with the Logan storyline, knowing it’s very similar to what’s been done before but adding enough variety to the design of the episodes to try and hide this. It’s not all bad though and the creativity is actually quite welcome here. If the scripts follow suit and go the same route as Walking Dead, revitalizing the series with some much needed excitement and buzz, we could be on to a winner here. As it stands though, Fear The Walking Dead delivers an okay, but not-quite-good, episode to add to its disappointing fifth season thus far. There’s still time to turn it around of course but right now, this season has not been one to remember.
