Episode 2 Fear The Walking Dead

Again, I was not disappointed by Fear the Walking Dead.  It’s not great, but it isn’t bad either.  If you have not seen the episode, then stop reading because spoilers are on the way.

First, let me detail what I appreciated about this episode, the “good” so to speak.

I like that this series is showing a little about the “extended” families of our times, although, they are keeping it limited.  For example, Travis goes to find his ex-wife and his son (extended family from his and Maddie’s life) but what about Maddie or Travis’ parents, siblings, etc.  I suppose they both could be orphans, only children or the rest of their family could live in other states, but this is something that zombie shows tend to ignore.  So, although they only brush over it with one small branch of the extended family that most of us enjoy/tolerate (your choice), I do appreciate the effort.

I also give them credit for finding a plausible reason for the separation of the main group (Maddie, Travis, Nick and Alicia).  By making Nick a drug addict who is sobering up, it gives us a real reason why Maddie and her two kids don’t just ride along with Travis when he goes to find his son and ex-wife.  It isn’t easy to create plausible reasons for groups to separate.  They even get bonus points for Maddie leaving her kids to get the drugs for Nick.  These are both very realistic and believable reasons to separate.  Kudos to the writers.  Maybe, they can give some believability tips to the writers of The Walking Dead.

I also like the fact that the zombies/walkers are harder to kill.  Maddie has to hit the principal in the head over and over to kill him.  This makes perfect sense.  His skull would still be very hard since he is recently dead.  I just hope that they stick with this level of difficulty.  In The Walking Dead sometimes it takes a lot of effort to smash in a walker’s head and other times they hit the zombie in the head with something as soft as a marshmellow and the skull explodes.  Just to be clear, this is not the case of a recently dead walker and a mushy one.  It is just poor writing, planning or sticking to their rules (maybe a combination of all three).  So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this series will stay true to the rules that they setup.

Now, let’s discuss the issues I had with this episode.  Fortunately, these are all minor.   

1.        Who cleans up vomit—scrubbing the floor on hands and knees mind you--without tying their long, pretty hair back?  Alicia would have at least put it up in a quick bun.  She would not have wanted her hair slipping into the yuck on the floor. (not a big deal here, but it did pull me out of the story a bit).

2.       When Nick was trying to keep Alicia from leaving, his accent slipped.  He sounded very British.  Lazy editing.  They should have made him do that scene again.

3.       Why didn’t Tobias take the food?  They killed the walker.  The food was right there.  I can write this one off as these are not experienced survivalist, like in The Walking Dead, but still….he came back to the school for his knife and food.  Why leave the food?  Plus, unless we go back to the food later, what was the point.  They could have bumped into the principal on their way out without going for the food.

4.       Why didn’t Tobias leave with Maddie?  In episode one he states that they are safer in groups.  Even if his mom was home, he should have asked her to go with them to Maddie’s house.  There is safety in numbers and Tobias is aware of that.  For me, this is the biggest “plot” hole.  It is almost like they forgot what Tobias said in episode one.  Even if his dialogue was really just for us, there was no reason that he couldn’t have went with Maddie.  If nothing else, it is one more person we can feel something for who will eventually die.

Okay, that’s all I have except I’m going to make a prediction that Maddie doesn’t live through this season.  I could be wrong.  I usually am, at least when I’m guessing on what’s going to happen in The Game of Thrones.  The only reason that I am predicting this is that I think the actor who plays Maddie has good zombie features.  Did anyone else notice that the guy who played the principal looked a bit like a zombie before he died?  In this series they are not relying on a lot of make-up for the walkers, but instead are using facial structure.  Hence my prediction.  Let’s see if I’m right.