Lorenzo James Henrie – Bitch Flicks

‘Fear the Walking Dead’: I’m From the Government, and I’m Here to Help

As with the writers on ‘The Walking Dead,’ these writers haven’t yet proven they have any idea how to write strong roles for women. But if they ever figure it out, they’ve got the right actor for the job.

Well, this was unexpected. Despite its occasional heavy-handedness and several key moments where characters did things that no one in their situation would ever actually do, the fourth episode of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead was actually the best yet. And they didn’t even need a zombie attack! Or for Alicia (Alycia Debnam Carey) to do anything worth mentioning!

They haven’t added any Black characters since the purge of the first two episodes, but the Latino characters on the show are a relatively rich and varied lot, with Ruben Blades’ Salvadoran barber Daniel being given some of the show’s best dialogue. Toward the end of the episode, as he was preparing to go to a military field hospital with his wife Griselda (Patricia Reyes Spindola, who mostly just gets to groan in pain and suffer nobly), he talks to Madison (Kim Dickens), whom he clearly recognizes as the household’s most astute and proactive observer of the encroaching zombie apocalypse, about the Salvadoran government’s massacre of some people from his village, and about how his father said the perpetrators were not evil, but committed evil acts out of fear. I got a chill when he told Madison that his father was a fool “to think there was a difference.” Daniel is a strong enough character to make the show’s over-the-top anti-government paranoia seem downright rational.

The engaging performances of Blades, Dickens, and — I have to admit he’s growing on me — wild-eyed Frank Dillane as Madison’s heroin-addicted ninja son Nick go a long way toward selling the silliness of the plotting. There was also a pretty strong opening with Madison’s beau Travis (Cliff Curtis) jogging around the now militarized, fenced-in, and seemingly safe neighborhood to the strains of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” and then Travis’ son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie), from his perch on Madison’s roof, sees a flash of light from a building outside the fenced in area, from the area that was supposedly cleared of all residents by the military. It looks like someone’s using a mirror to signal the folks within the perimeter, perhaps for help. Or perhaps it’s a warning.

In any case, Chris shows Travis his video of the mysterious flash, and Travis, who firmly believes that their problems will soon be over now that the government/military has stepped in, shrugs it off. Travis has ingratiated himself to the local military commander, Moyers (Jamie McShane), by helping out when a frightened neighbor locks himself in the bathroom. He eventually tells Moyers about what Chris saw, but Moyers is using the neighborhood’s streets as his personal driving range (this is what I meant by heavy handed) and blithely assures Travis that the area’s been cleared.

Meanwhile, Ofelia (Mercedes Mason), Daniel and Griselda’s daughter, has struck up a romance with a guardsman played by Shawn Hatosy. There’s the suggestion that she’s using him in an effort to get medicine for her mother, which would not be wise in this scenario, as these military types clearly have too much power over the locals’ lives.

Chris eventually shows Madison the video, and she clearly takes it more seriously, because she responds by sneaking up to the fence, cutting a hole in it and slipping through, presumably so she can go find whoever is signalling and clear up what that’s about. I might have tried a pair of binoculars first, but anyway, using her training as a high school guidance counselor, she eludes the soldiers with relative ease.

On the other side, she finds a bunch of people shot dead in the street, and they don’t appear to have been “sick” (i.e. zombies) so her suspicion about the military’s methods grows.

Meanwhile, Nick was supposed to be kicking heroin, but he has another idea. He sneaks into the house next door, where Travis’ ex-wife Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) has been using her nursing training to administer morphine to an elderly man with a heart condition. Even though Madison complains at one point about how much time she has to spend watching Nick, and even though the elderly guy’s wife lives with him and presumably keeps a pretty close eye on him, Nick somehow gets into their house undetected, and manages to unhook the guy’s IV and use it himself, while resting comfortably under his bed. It’s a shame he’s not using his superpowers for good.

When Madison gets back from her adventures beyond the fence, she catches Nick looking for the old man’s drugs, and slaps him around. Under these circumstances, who can blame her?

Liza is helping folks with their medical needs all throughout the neighborhood, and draws the attention of Dr. Exner (Sandrine Holt of House of Cards), the pretty face of the government/military carting away your loved ones in the dead of night. Liza tells Exner about Nick’s drug problem, and later regrets it when the guardsmen come to pick up Griselda that night, and instead of letting Daniel go with her, as Exner told him they would, they take Nick against his will.

Early on in the episode, Madison makes an odd complaint to Travis about all the cooking and cleaning and, ahem, watching Nick she has to do, and wonders not why Travis isn’t helping — he has importantly manly town duties — but why Liza isn’t. Well, clearly it’s because she’s going around the neighborhood helping those with medical needs, but maybe she’s keeping that a secret for some reason. At the end of the episode, when Nick is taken away, Liza takes the mendacious Dr. Exner up on her offer to go to the medical facility and help out, in part, it seems, to look out for Nick, but Madison still tells Travis as Griselda, Nick, and Liza are carted away, “This is Liza’s fault.” It’s not that there aren’t people who would see the zombie apocalypse as a conflict between them and their significant others’ ex, but Madison seems too smart, brave (foolhardy, even) and clear-headed for that. This kind of trumped-up domestic drama seems a bit silly in this context, and Madison is not a silly character. As with the writers on The Walking Dead, these writers haven’t yet proven they have any idea how to write strong roles for women. But if they ever figure it out, they’ve got the right actor for the job.

The show ends with another effective, chilling moment, as that night Travis sits on the roof in Chris’ old perch, and watches as several flashes erupt in the house where Chris saw the mirror signal earlier. This time, the lights appear to be muzzle flashes, and the look on Travis’ face suggests that he recognizes his own culpability in what’s transpiring, as he told Moyers about the house. Hopefully, this means Trav will be pulling his head out of his ass soon. It would make for a better show.

Recommended Reading

“Fear the Walking Dead Pilot: Can It Be More?”

“Fear the Walking Dead: The Black Guys Die First”

“Fear the Walking Dead: Liberals Try to Stop Zombies with Words!”

‘Fear the Walking Dead’: Liberals Try to Stop Zombies with Words!

The audience knows so much more than the characters that at a certain point, it doesn’t work as dramatic irony anymore; it’s just frustrating.

I know I called Fear the Walking Dead reactionary two weeks ago (they took last week off for Labor Day), but I want to retract that. The show is not really conservative, in the same way that the current crop of Republican presidential candidates isn’t really conservative. It’s more radical and disturbing than a simple longing for a bygone fantasy era of law and order when everyone knew their place.

This week, tough, smart widow Madison (Kim Dickens, still doing better than the material deserves), heroin-addicted Nick (Frank Dillane, whose perpetually wild-eyed countenance and exaggerated limp are certain to get him mistaken for a zombie and shot some day), and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) are stuck at home waiting for Travis (Cliff Curtis) as the neighbors begin eating each other. Travis is stuck in an L.A. barbershop with his ex-wife Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) and their petulant teen son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie).

The barber, an El Salvadoran immigrant named Daniel (the great Ruben Blades) doesn’t seem to like Travis much, and it’s not clear why. He takes offense when Travis reassures Chris, who’s worried about the rioting and looting outside, that they won’t break into the barbershop because they wouldn’t be interested in stealing a bunch of combs. “There’s more than just combs in here,” Daniel indignantly tells Travis, thankfully out of earshot of Chris, who would probably be terrified to learn that the shop also has scissors, shaving cream, hair gel, and other loot-worthy items. In any case, the writers clearly struggled with how to introduce Daniel’s mistrust/dislike of the generally likeable-enough Travis, and ultimately failed to come up with anything compelling. So, the combs thing.

Eventually, rioters burn down the building next door, forcing Travis, Chris, Liza, and Daniel to run, along with Daniel’s wife Griselda (Patricia Reyes Spindola) and their adult daughter Ofelia (Mercedes Mason). It’s mayhem on the streets, as protesters, rioters, and looters dissolve into a violent mass, including some who have turned and are eating each other. Kind of the way the mainstream media depicted Occupy Wall Street. Cops are eating each other, too, though, adding to the madness. While Daniel wants to split away from Travis and his people (you remember, because of the whole combs thing), Griselda is injured when cops using firehoses on the protesters knock down a scaffolding. Travis offers to drive them to a hospital, but hospitals are pretty much zombie central, so Daniel convinces Travis to take them to Madison’s home.

Meanwhile, Madison and the kids are staying up late playing Monopoly. Hey, they don’t know it’s the apocalypse yet. It’s a reasonable way for a mom to keep her kids from thinking about what’s going on outside while they wait for Travis to come home. It doesn’t make sense for Madison not to tell Alicia what’s going on out there, but it’s for the girl’s own good, right, and I’m sure she won’t do anything stupid and reckless because she doesn’t understand the threat. Later, after a dog startles them, they decide to go to the neighbor’s house, because they have a shotgun, but for some reason they leave the back door wide open, which is unwise in L.A., even if you don’t know there are zombies everywhere. After they find the gun, they hear the dog barking, and look back at their house to see the zombie neighbor go in. Do zombies eat dogs? Why yes, they do. Then Madison sees Travis pulling up to the house.

In a recurring motif, Madison is too slow, or doesn’t yell loudly enough to keep someone from entering a dangerous situation. Travis goes inside, followed by Daniel and them. He finds the neighbor munching on the dead dog, and surmises, “He’s sick.” While Travis struggles to keep the “sick” neighbor from biting him, Daniel comes up with the shotgun and fires. The first shot just gives us the best gore effect so far (and that’s what this is all about, for a lot of viewers), but the second one goes straight into the brain. It’s almost like Daniel has seen those George Romero movies that don’t exist in this universe.

Travis’ compassion is clearly meant to be seen as a liability. When he finds Daniel showing Chris how to use a shotgun, he gets angry. “You know how I feel about guns,” he chastises Madison. Yes, because gun control is not a reasonable response to the insane level of gun violence in our society, but something that weak-ass people will still be worrying about in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.

And then there’s the neighbor, Susan. Susan was apparently Madison’s rock after her husband died. She tries to eat Alicia, so Madison considers braining her, but Travis has a hard time accepting that she’s not just “sick.” He convinces Madison not to end Susan, while Daniel looks on from a distance and pronounces Travis “weak.” When Ofelia tries to convince him they should leave with Travis and Madison because they’re good people, Daniel says flatly, “Good people are the first ones to die.” Well, on this show, after Black people, apparently.

The next morning, Travis, Madison and their families are set to leave town, but as they’re driving off, Madison spots Susan’s husband returning home. I didn’t catch the name of this actor, but his obliviously cheerful calling out to his wife as though he was in a soap commercial (“Honey, the airport was closed because of the zombie apocalypse! What’s for breakfast?”) was another welcome dose of unintended comedy. Anyway, Madison tries to warn him, but again, she’s too late. She needs to take yelling lessons, or something. Just as Susan is about to bite the poor guy, the army moves in and takes her out. It should be a poignant moment, after all the hand-wringing over Susan. Instead, it’s just more ridiculousness. Travis thinks the cavalry’s arrived, and they’re saved. Daniel, who probably came to this country fleeing death squads in El Salvador, knows better, yet again.

It would help if the show was more coherent and focused in its direction, and sure, if the writing were stronger, but the aesthetic problems already seem like they’re inherent to the premise. The audience knows so much more than the characters that at a certain point, it doesn’t work as dramatic irony anymore; it’s just frustrating.

Beyond that, the show’s themes are troubling. After killing off every Black character, and depicting police brutality protesters as ignorant buffoons and lowlifes last week, this week, the show slams gun control and suggests a dystopian future where the government stepping in during a crisis is the worst possible thing that could happen. Fear the Walking Dead is falling more and more in line with radical right-wing politics every week. It can only end with Donald Trump vanquishing the zombie curse while calling Travis a “loser” and selling his new book, The Art of Zombie-Killing.

Recommended Reading

“Fear the Walking Dead Pilot: Can It Be More?”

“Fear the Walking Dead: The Black Guys Die First”