Last week, the villain du semaine (named Connor) captured Alicia and Travis and brought them back to his hidey hole—a drydocked fishing trawler at a shipyard. There, he and his merry band waited for their cohorts to follow them back with the Abagail. Ahh…but the good guys took back the Abagail and ured the bad guy’s brother, a dick named Reed (who was doing quite nicely despite having been stuck through the midsection with a metal rod, thank you very much). So Madison contacted Connor, and offered a checkpoint-Charlie-style prisoner exchange—Reed (now dead—either from his injuries or from a gunshot delivered via Travis’s kid) for Travis and Alicia. Long story short, good guys win and our little morality play continues.
The annoying thing is that the walkers (whom supplied the entire premise for both series) have been relegated to largely immaterial background noise. Anything could have been used to set the events of Fear the Waling Dead in motion—the Ebola virus, alien invasion, deep one incursion, soccer riots, what-have-you. Actually, a deep one incursion may have worked better since everyone’s taken to the water now, but I digress. The characters, for the most part, are forgettable. Daniel (El Salvador death squad guy) is the only interesting character by a huge margin. He’s still a trope, but an interesting one. I’m hoping that, after this is done, he gets his own series where he’s a bounty hunter travelling the badlands of the American southwest.
Fear the Walking Dead may have started out on an interesting note—another take on the Walking Dead theme—different and more varied characters, different motivations, different settings. But it’s become ather bland and forgettable. Will I watch? Sure, but with it being on three times on Sunday nights, it’s easy to not miss.
