AMC: Fear The Walking Dead

[DRW50]

Coming back on tonight.

[slick jones]

I liked tonight's episode, but I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.  

[Juliajms]

This was a good episode. Tyreese lives in the form of Nick. Madison has almost hit the ground running in terms of knowing what needs to be done. I have mixed feeling about that. She definitely seems pretty heartless at times and it seems a little too soon for that. At the same time it's always refreshing to see a character who isn't harboring delusions that this is just a bad case of the flu. The junkie son (I'll learn names soon) is also smarter than he seems. He's obviously going to get some people killed though. The older Latino guy seems like has definitely been through something similar.

 

 

[Antoyne]

This is a show full of dumb characters.

[Vee]

Solid episode.

 

According to some of the backstory in interviews, Madison's husband died when Nick was 13, leaving him something of an arrested adolescent, and she has either addiction or abuse issues in her family past. The Salazars fled the military regime in El Salvador.

[DRW50]

I wonder if this was originally two episodes in scripting stage. It felt very packed. Not a bad thing of course. 

 

I feel a little sorry for Cliff Curtis, as he will now get the same "what a bleeding heart idiot" hate that Rick Grimes always used to get, but I guess I see the reason they have to have this type of character. At least they have divided the grim reality duties up between Kim Dickens and the older man. I like his wife - it's a shame she will likely die soon.

 

Moments like the power coming on and going off at random times really worked for me, along with the absolutely gorgeous scenes of Cliff and his family seeing the lights go off in one section of town after another.

 

I hope they ease up on the "shocking" moments where someone is grabbed and about to get bitten, because the more it happens the more it starts to seem a little silly and like the walker is doing everything he can to avoid taking an actual bite. 

[Juliajms]

I think these shows have to have the occasional idealistic person. This show even more than the original. Hell, I'm maybe the only person on this board who liked Tyreese. I don't think it's wrong for some people to have the mindset 'as long as I'm alive I'm going to hold on to my humanity because once it's gone, surviving doesn't matter anyway'. It's easier to justify that thinking on this show because they haven't seen one example after the next of their friends getting killed yet.

[Vee]

I give this stuff a lot of latitude, because realistically, this is how people would react initially - nobody is going to jump to 'zombie, kill it' in everyday life.

[DRW50]

I liked Tyreese too. 

 

I don't mind them being idealistic or not wanting to kill those they knew, or those they still see as people. It mostly depends on how it's handled. I thought the scene with Cliff Curtis so adamant about not killing the neighbor, Susan, was a bit redundant as we'd already seen him reluctant to take life 2-3 times in the episode. I thought it just undercut the material.

[Juliajms]

9/20- episode: 

So I'm been calling Travis, Nick. Oh well.  Speaking of Nick, I have a harder time sympathizing with him than I should. It's not really his fault that he's suffering from addiction during a zombie apocalypse, but I was still rooting for Madison when she started slapping him around. I know she was wrong, but it's TV, so I don't care. Stealing that man's IV was just beyond the pale.

 

Looks like the daughter is a religious nut. Just what you need in an apocalypse a junkie and a religious nut. Was Madison sneaking alcohol in the garage? That would certainly be the icing on the cake, but after what she saw it's hard to blame her.

 

I wonder if it's Tobias trying to contact Madison? He seemed too well developed to just be dropped.

 

At first I thought the army was just taking the weak away and killing them, but if so, why do they need a (fake) nurse? It makes me wonder if they are experimenting on people.

[Vee]

Someone at this show really loves glorifying Frank Dillane's body with long, languishing pans, and maybe I should complain about that. But I won't.

 

The episodes get more and more solid. The surreal dread of the fake 'calm' really worked for me, and I love watchng the relationships start to fray and shift. Kim Dickens is showing some Deadwood steel and is really riveting to watch as she changes, which makes me wonder if Madison is the character the showrunners have described as

The scene with her and Nick was awful, but human.

 

I don't think Alicia is a religious nut. The voice-over was her reading Susan's (the Asian woman from last week) suicide letter to her husband, the man who arrived at the very end of the previous episode.

 

I do wonder what happened - did they just seal the city off and then start shooting people? Leave them to die? It's hard to know what exactly happened and how when evidently, the Clarks were living in a lower-middle-class suburb on the edge of the city. But it's also been nine days since Episode 2.

 

Showrunner Dave Erickson on last night's show with EW. Also for THR.

[Juliajms]

Thanks Vee. I thought the daughter was "talking" to her head boyfriend. I agree the show is getting much better. It's opened up a lot since the first episode. It's more of an ensemble, which is what I was hoping for.  

[quartermainefan]

I am of two minds on this show.  I like the edge the show has where everything seems ominous, but the characters are supremely unlikable almost up and down the line.   Plus, where are the freaking zombies???

•  The daughter:  Can she die please?   She has been annoying since her first scene and only brings the show down.   Her boyfriend needs to come back and eat her
• The druggie:   I like him most of everyone on the show
• The other son:  He seems like he has potential but they don't do much with him
• The Spanish guy:  He is basically playing a human fortune cookie spouting out words of wisdom with an accent.  Boring
• The spanish daughter:  I like that she is willing to sleep around to get medicine.    That is good shorthand for "this situation is desperate"
• The ex-wife:  helpful nurse but unwittingly got them all in trouble.   I think she has potential though
• The shmuck husband:  Useless, a fool, total FF material up to now
• His cliche TV wife:  sorry, this is a stock character.   I don't think there is anything new or unique about her than hasn't been on TV before.   These characters get the job done I guess, it is just I could swear this woman ran to seattle to solve cases on The Killing and then ran home to make dinner.   Just nothing new there but the actress is ok.
• The government as the enemy:   this is old news for TV shows and movies.   Why would the army be killing innocent people except so Ruben Blades can sound wise? 

[Vee]

Our government does that sometimes. All governments do that sometimes.

[quartermainefan]

I honestly don't know if I like the show.   At times it is very interesting and has tension, but it is loaded with implausible and unlikable characters.  The show has ignored zombies in favor of making the US Government the big bad, and they really haven't given much motive for why the army is now evil except it works as a plot device.   If the end of the world is coming there would be no point in killing everybody and if they don't think it is the end of the world there is now doubly no point in killing able bodied, healthy people.   Who do these male soldiers think will help them repopulate society if they kill every civilian woman on earth?   And there is just no reason for it.   If the US government is pulling out of southern california, there is just no reason to want to imprison every civilian just so you could kill them later.   This all allows Senor All-Wise to draw allegories and comparisons to fascists regimes and corrupt commandantes, but as yet they haven't explained anything.  

I guess that is the bigger problem:  the show about the fall of Los Angeles is filmed in some parking lot behind a studio somewhere.  Don't we want to see the Hollywood sign burn up or the chinese theater overrun with the dead?  For a show supposedly chronicling the fall of mankind all we see is fear and anxiety in the hermetically sealed environment of one family.   The show was more interesting with the riots, and most interesting when the smart kid was foreshadowing how the world would fall.  And then they didn't show it.