Whoops! Surprise! Fear the Walking Dead came back last week and I didn’t have cable.
I have Sling cable now and it kind of sucks. It’s like having cable, only it pauses a lot and it’s rather blocky, but it at least allows me the freedom to watch Fear the Walking Dead which… also kind of sucks.
Last week’s episode was a snorefest, chock full of Nick’s druggie background that we already pretty much knew about and didn’t really care to learn more about. This week, Nick is still separated from the group and another group of characters (I cannot remember their names. Would it be horrible to call them Mom, Black Guy, White Chick, and Mexican Chick?) find out in the most predictable twist ever that, if you leave a yacht alone off the coast of Mexico in a zombie apocalypse, the thing is going to get stolen. For goodness sake, I wouldn’t leave a yacht parked off the coast of Mexico by itself today! This group then goes to a nearby hotel and pretty much just have dialogue until the end of the episode.
Nick, however, has gotten into another dead-worshiping cult run by a pharmacist who, apparently, is immune to the zombie plague.
All right, I still think this show has problems. Aside from Nick and Salazar, the other good character they killed off in the stupidest way possible before the hiatus, I can’t remember names and don’t give a darn what happens to a one of them. Can you believe that I didn’t even realize that Dad and Jerk Face Son were missing until someone mentioned they were still missing? That’s seriously how little this show has made me care. The writing and pacing for Fear the Walking Dead is glacial is glaciers were being slowed down by anchors.
On the other hand, I am kind of digging how quickly it’s willing to shake up the status quo this season. Already, we’ve lost the Abigale, we’ve lost Mexican zombie town, and we’re in the middle of two new set pieces. This actually feels like a show where the characters are on the run – I just wish there was more running and less talking.
The idea of having someone who is immune is quite exciting, story-wise, even though I suspect that this pharmacist is just a con-man and is using his new zombie religion to maintain order amongst his flock. I also like how Nick is drinking the Kool-Aid. He’s a character who is so amazingly lost that he’s willing to grab any line tossed to him.
I hate that the episode ended on a cheap cliffhanger for two reasons… one, it was cheap and, two, it’s got to be one of the most easily escapable death traps I’ve seen since Batman ’66. Come on, Fear, the biggest thing you have going for you now is that you haven’t pulled a terrible cliffhanger like The Walking Dead did last Spring. Don’t start now!
Jason Gaston 