There are no major moments or big revelations in this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame.” The episode is a relatively entertaining hour, so long as viewers don’t stop for too long to contemplate the events. To anyone who took a moment to consider what happened over the course of 42 minutes, it’s hard to escape how facile the storylines were.
Let’s break down the four storylines individually.
Alicia’s Storyline
The synopsis for this week’s episode states, “Alicia must reconcile with her past decisions.” That sounds weighty, but opaque, until it becomes clear exactly what that means. In the episode, the “past decisions” that Alicia must reconcile with is the decision to get drunk the night before. She spends the episode in a hungover funk. In that hungover state, Alicia grouses because the zombie apocalypse interrupted her life plans, and she sleeps with Jake because he expresses concern. “Alicia, are you OK?” he says, before she jumps him. Easiest pick-up line ever. After they sleep together, Jake offers Alicia a copy of one of his Bukowski novels. Alicia declines, stating that she no longer believes in “poetry and art” because, in a zombie apocalypse, there’s no point. Later in the episode, Jake delivers a clumsy monologue telling Alicia that something in the world has to matter besides guns. In the final music montage, Alicia jumps from a cliff into a lake, which is when she wordlessly realizes that there is, in fact, more to life than guns, like for instance jumping from cliffs into bodies of water.
Nick’s Storyline
In the episode’s cold open, a old woman dies in her sleep and turns into a zombie. Rather than kill her to save himself, the woman’s elderly husband hugs his wife. Unable to bite him because she’s not wearing her false teeth, the woman hopelessly gums at his shoulder. The husband puts his temple next to hers and with one bullet, ends both of their lives. When they fall dead, they knock over a lantern, setting their little house on fire.
It’s a decent cold open. Nick is emotionally affected by the husband’s decision to die with his wife. He feels a kinship, and sees parallels in his own relationship with Luciana. He begins cleaning up the dead couple’s burnt home, realizing it could make a great place for Nick and Luciana to settle down and raise a family. The catch? Luciana doesn’t want to stay on Broken Jaw Ranch. For good reason, it turns out: the residents of the ranch do not like brown people. Nick assures Luciana that he will leave with her, but even after he practically proposes to her, she can tell that he’s become attached to both the ranch and to Jeremiah Otto, with whom Nick bonds over their shared addiction. Jeremiah, meanwhile, sees Nick as a surrogate son. In the episode’s final musical montage, Luciana leaves the ranch in the middle of the night, and Nick wakes up to find her gone. Jeremiah comforts Nick by giving him the gun the husband used to kill himself and his wife. Nick seems weirdly nonplussed by Luciana’s disappearance, and both suspicious and curious about the gun.
Daniel and Victor
In last week’s episode, Victor told Daniel that his daughter, Ofelia, was still at the hotel. Daniel knew he was lying, and said as much. Nevertheless, Victor took Daniel to the hotel this week, knowing that Ofelia was not there. I have no idea what the point of the trip is because Victor knew it would end in disappointment, and Daniel knew that Victor was lying. Daniel and Victor argue on the way, and once they arrive and discover that the hotel has been overrun by zombies, Daniel uses the walkers to torture a confession out of Victor. Victor comes clean and admits that Ofelia left the hotel before Victor did. Daniel jumps in the car and leaves Victor behind. Presumably, Daniel is returning to Tijuana to oversee the distribution of water, while Victor is going for a long, long walk by himself.
Madison’s Storyline
The meat of the episode involves Madison’ s trip to the site of the helicopter crash with Troy and a few of his men. During a detour, Madison proves herself worthy by killing a few zombies. Later, Troy, Madison and Co., discover who is responsible for shooting down the helicopter. It’s a group of Native Americans who also scalped one of the men from Broken Jaw Ranch and allowed a crow to pick at his brains while he is still alive (the annoying Native American stereotype aside, it’s an effectively disturbing scene).
The Native American tribe is led by a man named Walker, who has decided to take their land back from the white people (an interesting twist, which makes it more difficult to root for the white people here). Walker takes Troy and Madison’s cars, supplies and shoes, and makes them walk back to Broken Jaw Ranch barefoot to deliver a message: leave or be violently forced off the land.
On the way back, Madison and Troy get into a pissing match over whether to sleep or rest. Madison wins the argument, but while they’re sleeping, Troy takes a knife to Madison’s neck and nearly kills her, but he can’t bring himself to slice her throat. I have no idea what’s going on here, but based on the context of their earlier argument, I think it means that Troy sees in Madison the caring mother figure he’s been missing in his life.
Takeaways
There really isn’t much to “Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame.” The take-home message is this: 1) Alicia is woke to the value of art and poetry in the apocalypse; 2) Otto and Nick have forged a father-son relationship while Troy and Madison have forged a mother-son relationship; 3) Luciana is gone, 4) Victor has been stranded by Daniel, and 5) a group of Native Americans are threatening to take over Broken Jaw Ranch, which will probably result in a violent showdown considering the number of weapons stashed on the ranch. Meanwhile, the characters on this show have no idea how to stick together, and when the characters themselves have a hard time bonding with each other, it makes it difficult for the audience to bond with them.
