by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

1×06: “The Good Man”

So they let them out.

This is the final episode of the season and the one where our heroes try to save their three taken loved ones — Nick, Liza, and Griselda — by committing the slow, shambling, long-term, horrific genocide of the remaining L.A. residents. We knew that the arena full of crashing-at-the-gates, yearning-to-be-free-and-eat-brains zombies were most likely going to be some sort of trump card for one group or another, but it’s disappointing (if not predictable) to see our heroes responsible for the overrunning of L.A. by zombies, our heroes packing up and running away without telling anyone, our heroes basically killing a bunch of innocent people to achieve their own ends. Their evils weren’t direct, they didn’t set out to bring about the apocalypse, but in releasing that crashing, brain-eating zombie horde to distract the military and get Nick, Liza, and Griselda back, they were responsible for the killing of L.A. They didn’t even close the gates of their community behind them when they left. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

1×05: “Cobalt”

It may not be the best example of our own humanity when we react positively to death on a show we watch week after week, but when we cheer for the deaths of certain characters, some entirely innocent, does that actually make us bad people?

In this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead, entitled “Cobalt”, we finally learn the meaning of that mysterious term, the military’s plan for self-extraction and abandonment (and possibly extermination) of its civilian charges.  And it’s happening soon. Except delete the word ‘finally’, because there have been no seeds for cobalt planted thus far, and that’s the type of lack of forethought that’s really hurt the show in these late stages. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

1×04: “Not Fade Away”

We’ve still got two episodes to go, and we really only have four episodes to judge it on, but I feel like I can say with confidence that I like Fear the Walking Dead better than its parent show so far. The Walking Dead may be, by and large, an easy show to like for pretty obvious reasons, but it’s also been pretty grating if not mind-numbing to understand some of its characters, the choices they make, and the resulting prolonged dramas they’ve caused, and that’s led to a lot of really stupid things happening with alarming frequency and some unnecessary character assassinations like what happened with Andrea becoming an unlikable, shrill turnoff before her welcome demise. In Fear, even if you don’t like a character, at least it’s not hard to understand where they’re coming from, and I don’t particularly want to see anyone die just yet. Continue reading →