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!”