Why I’m Dropping… Fear the Walking Dead season 2

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

Truth be told, I’d been thinking about it for a while. Or more precisely, I’d thought about dropping Fear the Walking Dead once before and then once again now, and those two passing thoughts were easily enough to convince me to drop the show, because, really, who’s thinking that much about Fear the Walking Dead anyway? To be honest, even I, someone who’s reviewed every episode of the show since it debuted late last summer, had almost completely forgotten about it and was actually kind of taken off guard when I saw that it was coming back to finish the back half of its second season this past weekend. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

2×07: “Shiva”

There’s a very specific type of melancholy that I’ve always felt during this time of the year as the days got longer, the darkness waned, and summer continued its inevitable approach. It’s too bright!  It’s too damned hot! And most of our favourite TV shows have finished their seasons. In one respect, however, we’ve come very, very far from that place, with summer television programming giving us some of the most acclaimed and most anticipated new series in recent history, as well as a brand new episode of one of our greatest shows only yesterday forever changing our feelings on the words, “Hold the door!”

All of which is another way of saying Fear the Walking Dead sucks. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

2×06: “Sicut Cervus”

A lot of sh*t has happened to the fear team in a relatively short amount of time, or rather we’re supposed to feel like a lot has happened. That whole thing with ol’ whatshisname… Connor? I guess that really messed everybody up insofar as most families never have to go through a father-daughter-pirates hostage situation. Beyond that though, it doesn’t feel like a whole lot has happened, at least not much that we could really care about, so all the wild turns some of these people take this episode kind of come out of left field. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

2×05: “Captive”

Well… I guess that’s one way from getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’.

For a while through watching “Captive”, I kept saying to myself, “This isn’t so bad, it’s okay, it’s okay.” “Oh, this is the part where Alicia stabs Jack, it’s making sense, it’s making sense.”  “Oh, cool, Alex is back? Maybe they did have a plan for her. They’re doing stuff, they’re telling a story.” And then the show ended and the whole thing kind of didn’t go anywhere. Kind of really didn’t go anywhere. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

2×04: “Blood in the Streets”

Jon Snow lives!!! Also, there was another episode of Fear the Walking Dead…!

“Blood in the Streets” actually starts off with a pretty good hook as Nick made his way to shore, swimming under cover of darkness to the Mexican border, still guarded by border patrol helicopters, presumably now more concerned with the infected than illegal immigrants. We soon find that he’s been sent on a mission from Strand to pick up Luis, a fixer of sorts who’s in league with Strand, and on the way Nick purposefully covers himself in zombie guts so that he can move uninterrupted towards his goal. It’s kind of jarring seeing Nick (or any one of our Fear cast members) on a very specific, mission-focused course of action, and it reinforced my [relative] love of Nick, who’s turned out to be surprisingly good at everything in this world. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

2×03: “Ouroboros”

Early on in “Ouroboros”, only the third episode in this new, 15-episode-long season, Strand tells Madison, and by extension us, that the real danger on the ocean is people. Which… y’know, duh, we just spent an entire season on the parent show building up to the leader of one group beating a member of our group to death with a barb-wire-wrapped baseball bat he named Lucille, so I think we all know a little about people being the real danger in the post-zombie apocalypse if there was ever any doubt. If anything, the real danger for Fear the Walking Dead right now is probably Game of Thrones stealing and and all of the post-Sunday-night television discussion.

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Fear the Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

2×02: “We All Fall Down”

After escaping from their mysterious, yet-to-be-revealed-but-no-doubt-still-a-factor-in-this-story pursuers by sticking near the coastline, our heroes spot the errant lights of a house and head in-land to investigate. Finding a family, the Gearys, whose patriarch, former park ranger George, is determined to maintain their spot for as long as they can, our heroes gather vital information and new insight on the state of their new world. And get most of the Gearys killed. It’s not usually hard to tell when people are doomed on this show. I mean, there are all sorts of outside-narrative, inside-baseball ways of telling if actors will be sticking around, especially following casting news, but you can usually just tell if a newcomer is long or short for this world, and this family definitely wasn’t right, at least not right enough to be added to the cast. It’s not that they were overtly weird or perverse, but you just knew they wouldn’t have fit. Continue reading →