Fear the Walking Dead - S1E6 - The Good Man

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Previously on Fear the Walking Dead, ‘Cobalt’

The Dip Out

Los Angeles is a dark, walker-infested, city on fire. And those 2,000 walkers are still pressing against the chained doors at the stadium.

Travis and Madison inform the kids they’re leaving, but first they’ll stop to get Liza and Nick. Daniel thinks Adams has told them all he knows so maybe it’s time to kill him. Travis disagrees and Adams convinces them that they’ll need him once they’re inside the compound. Against his better judgement, Daniel agrees.

Adams pleads his case once he’s alone with Travis. He’s convinced Daniel will kill him eventually, and he offers to tell Travis where to go once inside if Travis will let him go.

Outside, Madison feels bad about ditching out on the neighbors, but Ofelia? Not so much. Her behavior at the gate last episode may have been an act, but she clearly meant what she said about the neighbors not doing anything when their families were taken.

They leave the subdivision, passing neighbors sitting down to dinner without a clue. They don’t even close the damn gate behind them.

Evac Imminent

At the facility, Exner radios for confirmation of their evacuation. She lists the number of ill and the personnel. Andrews Air Force Base has room and the extraction teams are on their way. Liza wonders what this means for her family. Exner wonders who is considered family. Travis and Chris or everyone? Uneasy having to choose, Liza eventually says she just wants to stop for Travis and Chris.

Daniel comes strolling up to the north gate of the facility and when guards threaten to shoot him, he suggests they save their ammo for the 2,000 walkers turning the corner.

Oh, Daniel. 

Daniel returns to the parking garage on the other side, where everyone else is waiting. He learns Travis let Adams go. “It was the right thing to do,” Madison says.

Daniel warns it might bite them in the ass and then looks disgusted with the group of pussies he got stuck with in the zombie apocalypse. They leave Chris and Alicia with the cars.

Inside, Nick is suffering from RJS (Restless Junkie Syndrome). Strand suggests he imagine a needle in his arm and take a damn seat. They’re chatting about Nick’s neighborhood when the gunfire from outside seems to be making its way inside. Strand searches his pockets for the key, but Nick has it.

Slick junkie skills.

Escape

Now that the compound is compromised, the evac helicopters are like, “Hold on. Let’s assess the situation.” Then they assess their asses right up out of there. Exner advises the medical staff, including Liza, to run. She’ll remain to take care of the patients.

Travis, Daniel, Madison, and Ofelia sneak inside the compound as the walkers storm the gate. Daniel says they’ll worry about how they’ll escape once the walkers are inside when they get to that point.

For some dumb reason, Alicia and Chris get out of the car to chat, but end up rushing back inside when they hear someone approaching. It’s a trio of soldiers looking for a ride. They rough Chris up and make sexually suggestive comments and gestures towards Alicia because, for some reason, every man in the military is a piece of shit on this show. Then they take the keys to the car.

Strand and Nick exit their cage with Strand refusing to help anyone else. Helping those strangers does not help them. Strand’s mission is to obtain a ride and then head for Abigail. Nick is all, “Who dat?”

Liza uses her ID card to get to the evac point where soldiers are leaving. The gates finally give and Liza  watches as the soldiers get attacked. One bitten man is denied entry to a helicopter, so he runs into the rotating blades.

Jesus wept.

She runs back inside with other soldiers as the gates give out completely.

Nick and Strand find Melvin, the guard Strand bribed, being eaten. Strand gets his cufflinks back, but tells the dying man he can keep the watch. When other walkers arrive, Strand grabs a gun and they run for it. Unfortunately, Melvin was his ride. The two get trapped in a corridor with walkers approaching. The door in front of them is locked.

Madison and crew arrive on the other side and Nick tells his mother to leave when they can’t get the door open.

Thankfully, Liza arrives and uses her key card to get the door open. After a fight with a few walkers in the kitchen, Daniel asks Liza about his wife and she has to tell him and Ofelia that Griselda didn’t make it and there’s “nothing left to see.”

When they find Exner, she tells them how to get out, but warns there’s nowhere to go and refuses to leave with them. Madison is like, “Oh, well.”

Once they get outside, it’s daylight, and they find the smoking remains of the dead patients. Ofelia cries because she knows her mother is in that pile.

At the parking garage, there’s a moment of panic when they can’t find the car or the kids, and despite Daniel’s warnings to keep their voices down, Madison and Travis begin to call out for the kids, who were just chilling in the stairwell.

Happy ending! Everyone made it!

Not so fast. 

Adams appears with a gun and points it at Salazar. Everyone, including Ofelia, tries to talk him down but he shoots her anyway. Travis attacks and takes out six episodes of passive behavior on Adams’ face.

Poor Shawn Hatosy.

At Strand’s urging, they all head to his house on the water and it’s pretty damn nice. While everyone gets comfortable, Strand begins to pack. He shows Nick his yacht on the water, introducing him to Abigail.

Liza explains to Daniel how to treat Ofelia’s wound, but she’s going to be okay. She then hugs Chris and tells him she loves him. Liza heads outside and Madison follows, finding her on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Liza has been bitten and wants Madison to kill her. Madison hesitates, but Liza insists there’s no other way. Travis appears and also believes medicine may help her, but Liza has seen too much. She knows it’s the end for her. She makes Travis promise to protect Chris, and then he shoots her.

As Chris cries over his mother’s body, Madison holds a crying Travis on the beach.

Overall Thoughts: 

• This series had serious potential, but didn’t live up to it. Whether or not you thought or wanted this show to be about how society fell, that’s not what they gave us. What we got was the limited perspective of a handful of people who spent the majority of the season together. Once it was clear we weren’t going to be privy to information unless one of those characters was there to witness it, we became as clueless as they were. That’s particularly frustrating because when it comes to the future, we know everything. Our lens to view the right now is filthy.
  • How did the city fall so quickly? No idea. Shit got real in a nine-day time span that happened off-screen and between episodes.
  • What was the point of the people signaling for help from the window? I guess we’re supposed to believe that the military executed them, which is believable since every person in the military with a speaking part turned out to be a terrible person.
• The most interesting thing I learned is that while the general public was still unaware of what was happening, medical personnel had protocol in place to deal with patients who die so that they didn’t come back as walkers, and a protocol in place if they did come back. I only know this from an article about the pilot, which learned it from AMC’s Story Sync. Everything else actually shown to us within the episodes was either things we already knew or things we’d already assumed, both from watching The Walking Dead.
• I said last week that this series was a power outage away from being just like The Walking Dead. Well, this week, the power is out all over Los Angeles and the characters are in pretty much the same situation as the ones on TWD… except they’re cleaner.
• Too many things were based on coincidence. There was no real reason why Madison and Travis’ neighborhood was chosen to be guarded. They just happened to show up in the nick of time. Travis just so happened to take shelter in the store of a man well-versed in torture. Nick just so happened to be put in the cell with the man with a plan… and a key. And what, exactly, was Nick’s purpose going to be for Strand’s escape. He said Nick possessed skills he needed. Really, the only skill Nick had was being related to the people who just so happened to be there when they were trapped.
• I am curious to see what ground is covered in season two, but I’m not anxious to get there. If it’s going to be just like The Walking Dead except on the west coast, that’s fine. But it’s a shame that the series, so far, doesn’t have anything new to offer.