Fear the Walking Dead has been plagued with a myriad of problems: Poor character development, iffy acting, and mediocre writing. But most of those things can be overcome if the story itself is compelling enough. Critics, after all, have faulted The Walking Dead for many of the same issues over its six seasons, but it remains not only the most watched show on cable, but beloved by most of its viewers. Why? Because within the overall story of these survivors, series creator Robert Kirkman has mapped out some great storylines in the source material that the showrunners have successfully translated onto the screen.
Through the first 13 episodes, Fear the Walking Dead has not only failed to find a compelling storyline, it’s had difficulty sticking to any one of them for long. The main characters dealt with the initial breakout for a few episodes before quickly jumping to a post-apocalyptic America ran by the military before the cast jumped on a yacht and set sail for a series of short arcs and standalone episodes featuring characters who were briefly introduced and then abandoned. The series has never really explored one story for more than two or three episodes, while The Walking Dead has been successful with eight-episode arcs covering the front and back half of each season.
As frustrating (and often boring) as last week’s Nickcentric season 2B premiere was, it seems to have finally moved the series into an intriguing place. This week, Strand, Madison, Ofelia, and Alicia have added a second layer on top of Nick’s arc, and both storylines are heating into legitimately intriguing and exciting arcs.
Let’s begin with Nick, who spent last week roaming through the desert in search of a new community, one that has more respect for the zombies. He drank his own urine and ate the entrails of an infected dog, but he still couldn’t get anything going. However, his new community brings along with it interesting new characters unique to The Waking Dead universe, a possible romantic interest for Nick, a new villainous faction, and a couple of mysteries that we can’t immediately crack.
We learn first of all that this new community sacrifices their ill to “the wall” — a horde of fenced-in zombies — as part of their religious beliefs. This community believes that the infected are a precursor to a necessary worldwide reset. They believe that all the walkers will eventually shuffle off into the sea and leave the planet to those chosen by God to lead the next iteration of civilization.
These people are led by a pharmacist named Alejandro (Paul Calderon), and the reason they are so quick to believe him is because Alejandro has allegedly been bitten by a zombie and survived. Not only has he survived, but he’s in top physical condition. As a pharmacist, he also tends to the ill, makes decisions about which of the survivors will receive medicine, and he offers “hope” to the dying, because false hope is better than no hope at all.
Alejandro also owns a stockpile of Oxycontin. This is particularly important because Mexican gangs have taken control of the grocery stores, and they only allow communities access to food and water in exchange for something of value. In this case, a Mexican gang run by Marco Rodriguez (Alejandro Edda) will exchange food and water only for Oxy, because Marco’s sister is an addict and needs it to stave off withdrawal pains, something of which Nick is keenly aware.
Nick nearly derails the agreement between Alejandro and Marco by stealing a snack cake that he wants to take back to the daughter of a man who was fed to the infected. However, with the help of Alejandro’s lieutenant Luciana (Danay Garcia) and his sense for those in need of a fix, Nick brokers a deal for more food and water than originally offered. The problem is that Nick also puts a target on not only his back, but that of the community. Eventually those Mexican gangsters are going to stop trading supplies for Oxy and steal all the Oxy from Alejandro, thereby making Marco and his gang a bigger immediate threat to Nick and his new community than the infected.
The storyline presents a few interesting questions: Is there some romantic chemistry between Nick and Luciano? Was Alejandro actually bitten by a walker, and if so, how did he survive (the bite was on his shoulder, so it isn’t a case where the infected area could be amputated)? Is Alejandro really feeding only the ill to the wall, because the man who sacrificed himself in this episode looked healthy. Moreover, is it possible that Alejandro has created this belief system in order to gain and hold on to power? Finally, why have they chosen Nick to live among them? What about Nick’s lack of fear around the dead makes him special? Do they plan on feeding him to the zombies, as well?
Meanwhile, the storyline involving Alicia, Ofelia, Madison, and Strand does not initially seem to work, but it ultimately provides the most effective cliffhanger of the series. The four go in search of Nick and, after giving up, decide to return to the yacht only to discover that it’s been stolen. The four thus decide to seek shelter in what they think is an abandoned hotel. Alicia soon discovers, however, that the hotel is not as it seems. Former occupants of the hotel either died in their rooms or were locked in them after they turned. In either case, the hotel rooms are packed with zombies, which discover that they can escape from their holding cells by leaping from the balconies, which makes for one of the more arresting visual sequences in the series. Alicia, trapped on an upper level, can’t get down to the ground floor to warn her mother and Strand — who spend most of the episode getting drunk in the hotel bar — that they are being surrounded by walkers. The episode ends with Alicia trapped on an upper floor, Ofelia — feeling suicidal — nowhere to be found, and Madison and Strand surrounded by walkers who are quickly closing in on them.
The hotel subplot is more than what it seems. It’s part of a multi-episode arc that will see those who survived this episode trying to get out of the hotel. It’s like a cross between Green Room and The Raid with zombies. Multiple characters — and more will be introduced — are trapped inside the hotel with no way to escape without confronting hordes of zombies (and certain death) surrounding them on all sides. From a story standpoint, it’s not as interesting as what’s going on with Nick right now, but from an action standpoint, it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened on the series. It’s four people against hundreds of zombies in a self-contained setting, a la Die Hard.
I don’t know how long Nick has with his new community, or how long Strand, Alicia, et. al, will be stuck in the hotel, but it seems to be shaping up into an arc that covers the entire back half of the season in the same way that the zombie caper covered the first eight episodes of The Walking Dead‘s sixth season. The arcs look to add a few additional characters, and one or two major characters are almost certain to die. It’s the most intriguing development of the series so far, and the season still hasn’t folded Travis and Chris into the action.
I’m reluctant to get my hopes up too much because Fear has burned us in the past, but what’s going on right now has the legitimate makings of a strong back half of the season.
