‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Has Worst Episode Yet (TV Review)

[rating=3.00] “Not Fade Away”

I was glancing at Twitter while watching The Emmys last night and I ran across someone criticizing the use of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” in an ironic context due to its overuse. While I agreed, I also thought “what program is possibly airing against The Emmys that’s ALSO using a Lou Reed song?”

A little while later, I found out the answer.

After a legitimately clever third installment, Fear The Walking Dead, sure enough, opens with the Lou Reed ballad set to shots of Gilbert Grape in his family’s pool, while Madison argues about painting the kitchen as Travis goes for a morning jog.

After a healthy spoon-feeding of irony, suddenly, after a nine-day time jump of the Army-occupied suburbs, we’re back to stepfamily exposition being substituted for any sort of story progression in a completely zombieless episode.

We are given our first antagonist, in the form of one supremely dickheaded Army Commander, Lt. Moyers, who in his opening speech makes a remark about behaving and following orders “or else I’ll have to shoot you.” He somehow resorts to Travis as a de-facto leader, even patronizing him by calling him “Mr. Mayor” in a scene that harkened back to this charming moment in the parent series:

Meanwhile, there’s drama with a neighbor, who’s able to drive off in a muscle car unnoticed, and a flickering light in the distance that catch’s Chris’s eye, one that both Chris and Madison play flashlight-tag with over the course of the episode. Complete with Madison’s “sneaking” off into areas outside the fence, and the golfing Army Commander, one thing’s clear: these are some Stormtrooper level Army guys guarding the suburbs.

We do learn Oscar’s inherent distrust and where it comes from which defaults his archetype into some kind of fresh ethnic take on the “Magic Negro” parable. As a boy, people disappeared from his village, only to turn up dead in a river. “They do evil because of fear,” was supposed to be the big takeaway quote from that story.

This begins feeding Madison’s doubt, as she questions the lack of progress in restoring lines of communication. Then, not long after a medical doctor makes the rounds, Gilbert Grape is abruptly snatched up and taken away, thanks to good old fashioned human betrayal. Finally, Travis, who had blamed the flickering light on Chris’s imagination (which, come on, dead people are reanimating and feeding off the flesh of the living to the point where the ARMY HAS QUARANTINED YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD – maybe it’s time for some benefit of the doubt), finally sees it, and then sees it snuffed out.

We are seriously overdue for some zombie gore next week after this paltry installment.