It’s a slow boil kind of episode.
What They Say:
Pillar of Salt – Madison springs into action when one of the hotel residents gets violent. Meanwhile, Alejandro shows a darker side of himself at the colonia.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the back half of this season moves on and is at about the halfway point here, Fear the Walking Dead has a pretty good run of episodes overall, though part of it don’t quite fly for me – notably at the colonia and how that’s weirdly unfolding. The last episode was definitely a lot of fun, even with its awkward bits, that gave us time with Madison and the others clearing the hotel. It’s probably one of the more daring and inventive plans they’ve had so far and it really served to showcase how far Alicia has come, both for herself and her mother in how she’s adapting to this world. Coming up with some sort of base of operations is important and while there are pros and cons to a hotel, well, there are certainly what feels like a lot of pros overall in many directions.
The cold open for this episode certainly reinforces that things in the colonia aren’t all that they seem, something that Nick has definitely struggled to understand. What we get here is a couple of parents and a young girl that are sneaking out in the middle of the day to get away from it because the whole thing is just unsafe now. They go with the familiar idea of killing one of the walkers and coating themselves in blood and making their way through them, but as we see time and time again, it’s other people that are the truly dangerous ones out there. When a truck pulls by that’s from elsewhere, they pretty much get shaken down for goods and especially the oxy since they know where they’re from. There is no safety these days and this just reinforces the basics of that pretty well.
What I like about the show is that it does segue into different areas and into the past. While we get a brief piece with Luciana doing her job to scavenge for goods, this time going to a little hotel and restaurant place, it shifts back to a different place in time as we see Ofelia with a young man that she’s very involved in with as he’s asking her to marry him. This gives us a little quality time with Ofelia before the fall and it does help to humanize here a decent bit since we’ve had so little of her to date. The main show does little with both of these elements overall as there usually isn’t a lot in the way of flashbacks nor of other groups and just survivors moving along that don’t interact directly with the main cast. Both of these serve to expand the world and again has me wishing for an anthology series of standalone episodes for a series.
I also like the way we’re seeing some decent things done at the big hotel where they’ve got a generator running that they’ll use briefly from time to time for certain things and more scavenging plans so they have a good chance at a decent survival. Of course, while we saw some lightness here with the way everyone is really interacting well things have to take a bad turn quickly. With Strand having done the right thing the last time around in dealing with the zombie bride, whose husband acceded to the reality of what needed doing, the bride’s mother, Ilene, most definitely has not forgiven and has shown up in front of him to stab him. With Victor showing a bit of life since the hotel was cleared, you could feel good about how he was feeling. So seeing him get stabbed really does make an impact as you really don’t want him to end up dead.
The situation puts a few things on the plate to be dealt with that’s certainly complicated. The first is what to do with Ilene because she can’t be trusted as she’s kind of deranged at this point. Since there’s a mix of people involved in regards to her, well, they’re trying to find a way to deal with it and strife within the group. Madison is working at being a leader here and she makes it clear that going forward, upon agreement, that violence against each other leads to exile. While getting that settled there’s also a plan to go get Strand some meds that he needs as our hotel manager, Elena, knows a place. Of course, it’s a bit of a drive and that basically gives hint that it’s Alejandro and his colonia, which makes you wonder how she knows about it. And as we’ve seen, the colonia isn’t in great shape since Alejandro has people sneaking away and there’s some distrust growing because of how events are playing out. A road trip here was inevitable, or Nick and the others making their way out into the world and coming across the hotel, so there’s definitely some curiosity in seeing how they reconnect. Admittedly, I’d like it to be quite a few more months apart so that they become more defined as people.
Discovering that Elena’s older son, Antonio, ended up with the gang at the supermarket certainly makes for an amusing way to begin bringing these disparate groups together. With a few of them heading to the supermarket to make a trade for medicine, we also get stress going on at the colonia that will eventually lead Nick to the supermarket as well. I actually like the dialogue we get between Nick and Alejandro over the nature of how the world is and what needs doing, though Alejandro presents himself as the reluctant leader that is making the hard decisions while Nick is trying to get him to realize that there are bigger issues that need to be dealt with. Alejandro’s not a tough nut to crack but there’s just a sense of waiting to see what the real path we’re going to get with him and the colonia will be.
With all these different pieces, and Madison discovering at least an idea about Nick being alive and kind of where he is, you know it’s all moving toward the inevitable. I’d actually enjoy it a bit more if the colonia story itself was better but it just feels kind of half-assed and not deeply plotted. I’m enjoying events at the hotel more and seeing some of the time between Strand and Alicia certainly reinforces that as we learn a bit more about her past, doing some volunteer nursing work before, and also seeing the way she really is hardening up in the right ways within this world. Not going all the way but where she needs to be. The two have a good scene together, even as he’s fighting to stay alive, as they have dialogue of truth that connects well in this situation.
In Summary:
While for the most part there aren’t any truly big moments here in this episode, Fear the Walking Dead works to put a few more pieces into place. The time with Ofelia is far too brief but I like that we get a little more of her past before the fall and a quick glimpse of where she is now. And while I could do with less of the colonia I do want more of Nick as he stands now because he’s definitely far more interesting at this point in time. The material with Madison and the hotel is what’s drawing me at the moment as we get some good stuff here that unfortunately gets sidetracked with the supermarket crew and what’s going to happen there. There’s more than enough material to work with here but even then we get some really stupid stuff as Madison just makes bad decisions when it comes to Nick. I get it, as a parent, but at the same time she’s just so unrealistic.
Grade: B-