‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Finds A Heartbreaking New Wrinkle In The Zombie Apocalypse

During the course of The Walking Dead, Rick and co. will occasionally stumble upon a scene that implies a heartbreaking series of events took place days, weeks, or months before they arrived. They will walk into an abandoned office building, for instance, and find the zombified inhabitants hanging from nooses having killed themselves rather than wait for the zombies to kill them. I recall one particularly upsetting scene in which they explored a home only to find a family holding each other, huddled together in a bed, with bullet holes through their heads, a framed picture of their once happy existence sitting on the bedside table next to them. There are a lot of sad stories in The Walking Dead universe like that one that we never get to witness.

In this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “This Land is Your Land,” we witness one of those stories, the pieces of which we probably could have put together based on the scene that Alicia, Nick, and Ofelia leave behind at the end of the episode. It’s a stomach-churning episode that asks of Alicia something no character has ever had to do in this show or The Walking Dead, at least on this scale. We have seen a number of characters forced to put their friends and loved ones down after they turned into zombies, but in “This Land Is Your Land,” Alicia has to put them down before they turn. What’s even more heartbreaking is that these characters submit to their own executions for the benefit of the others. By letting Alicia execute them, others gain hope, even if that hope is only fleeting.

The episode picks up where the last left off: Alicia, Ofelia, Crazy Dog, and the rest of the members of the Broken Jaw Ranch — 120 people or so in all — are trapped inside the pantry. We learn early on, however, that no air is getting into the underground bunker because a zombie is blocking the ventilation fan. While Crazy Dog and Ofelia crawl through the air ducts to locate the problem, Alicia is left with the rest of the Broken Jaw Ranchers in the pantry with about an hour’s worth of air before they all die of carbon dioxide poisoning.

The first thing Alicia has to do while Ofelia and Crazy Dog attempt to fix the ventilation system is to conserve air. A number of the people in the pantry had been bitten by zombies in the last episode, and they are all awaiting their certain deaths. Alicia, however, has to take away the few hours they have left with their loved ones by asking for volunteers. She reckons that by executing those who have been bitten that she can gain at least a few more minutes before the pantry runs out of air.

It’s an agonizing sequence. Bravely, Alicia injects them, one by one, with morphine to knock them out and then snuffs out their lives with a knife, stacking their lifeless, bleeding bodies on top of one another until the last infected member — who has been helping her kill the others — submits to his own execution.

Heartbreak, however, quickly transforms to horror. Alicia is unable to buy enough time to save their lives and one by one, the remaining survivors suffocate to death and turn into zombies. Only Alicia — near death herself — remains, and she is left to fight off some 80 or 90 walkers in a small, enclosed space. It’s riveting, intense television, and writer Suzanne Heathcote gives it an extra personal touch. While they’re waiting to run out of oxygen, Alicia meets and talks with a free-spirited older lady who reminisces with Alicia about her life, about how she wishes she had traveled and explored more. They quickly bond and her death by suffocation is probably the saddest moment of Fear the Walking Dead‘s run.

Alicia does not die, however. Crazy Dog and Ofelia reach the zombie trapped in the ventilation fan just in time to save Alicia from suffocating. Meanwhile, Madison, Strand and Walker arrive just in time to save Alicia from the rising zombie army inside the pantry.

Madison and Strand also save Nick and Troy, trapped inside a helicopter and surrounded by scores of walkers. All but certain to die, Troy offers Nick his last bullet, but before either can use it, Madison and Strand blow up the fuel tankers on the outskirts of the ranch and distract the walkers long enough for Troy and Nick to escape. Meanwhile, Ofelia and Crazy Dog also bond in the air vents, and we see for the first time the vulnerability under Crazy Dog’s stoic facade when the claustrophobia gets to him.

Once the characters reunite, Madison finally tells Ofelia about her father, and she breaks down. Alicia also finds out about the death of Jake, but Nick lies about Troy’s role in the zombie horde. That lie is just convincing enough to allow Troy to escape death again. The episode ends with Alicia — taking the advice of the older woman, who encouraged her to see the world — leaving everyone else behind and striking out on her own. A concerned Nick and Troy, however, follow close behind.

Meanwhile, Madison, Strand, Walker and Ofelia are headed back to the Tijuana dam to reunited Ofelia and Daniel and, perhaps, find a new home.

“This Land Is Your Land” is another terrific episode of Fear the Walking Dead, which has strung together the best two episodes of the series back to back. Nick, Alicia, and Ofelia have really come into their own after being separated from their parents, while Troy is now the compelling wild card. He’s a loose cannon, and only Nick can seem to contain him.

With only three episodes remaining, I am finding myself — for the first time — bummed that the season is nearing its end. The show has never been better, and I don’t want to wait another nine months to find out if it can continue to build on its momentum.

Additional Thoughts

— Next week’s episode sports an intriguing title: “El Matador,” which is loosely translated as “The Slaughterhouse.” After killing off around 120 redshirts in the last two episodes, it looks like there’s even more death on the horizon.

— Where is Alicia going? To that cabin Jake told her about in an earlier episode, where he wanted to take Alicia to get away from everyone before Troy ruined it.

— Walker seems awfully nonplussed by the fact that every single member of his community is dead.

— With Troy and Nick trailing Alicia, she’s going to find out the truth about Troy. It’s going to pit brother against sister, and it’s going to get ugly in these final three episodes.