For nine seasons, much of the reason that The Walking Dead has been so effective has been its series of menacing villains, from The Governor to the Terminus cannibals to The Wolves, Negan, and currently, Alpha, Beta, and the Whisperers. Meanwhile, over on Fear the Walking Dead, the villains have been weak and forgettable. This is not completely endemic to the Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg eras, either. Remember Shawn Hatosy’s Andy, the soldier who shot Ofelia in the first season? Neither does anyone else. What about Celia in the second season? Or Alejandro, the pharmacist who claimed to have survived a zombie bite? Jeremiah Otto was a decent villain in the third season, and it appeared that Proctor John could have been a great villain, but his arc ended abruptly when Nick blew up the dam. The fourth season had The Vultures, who weren’t particularly impressive — they didn’t kill people so much as they just waited them out — followed by the Trash Lady, who may have been one of the saddest, most pathetic villains we have ever encountered in a drama of this nature. Her entire motivation was to kill people who tried to help other people because no one helped her husband when he was hurt in a traffic accident.
Somehow, the fifth season villain, Logan (Matt Frewer), may actually be worse. He began the season as a promising villain, taking over Morgan’s compound in the season premiere with what seemed to be a sinister agenda. We didn’t find out until the midseason finale, however, that all he wanted was to know the location of Clayton’s gas fields. Logan didn’t even care about the compound and quickly gave it up.
In the midseason premiere, this so-called villain was easily duped when Sarah drove him out into the middle of nowhere and ditched him, forcing him to walk many, many miles to get back to the vicinity of Morgan. In last week’s episode, one of Logan’s henchmen was given a second chance and presumably transformed into a nice guy over the course of half an episode. Up until this week’s episode, in fact, the worst thing that Logan has done so far was to have his people … shoot up Wesley’s motorcycle. He doesn’t exactly strike a lot of fear in people.
In this week’s episode, Morgan and Althea were forced to confront Logan and his people again after he created a roadblock with is 18-wheeler, preventing Morgan and Althea from helping out a character who had been shot. Did Logan and his people — all armed with weapons — pose a threat to Morgan and Althea? No, not really. He could have threatened to kill Althea if Morgan wouldn’t tell him where the oil fields were. He could’ve tortured either one of them in an effort to gain information from them. Instead, all he did was to force Althea and Morgan to … find an alternate route. In fact, though Logan’s people had all the weapons, it was actually Morgan who assaulted Logan after Logan mentioned Morgan’s wife and kid.
We still don’t have a good idea of what Logan’s motivations are, either, beyond needing gas. Why does he need gas? We still don’t know, either. We only know, according to Logan, that his plan is “bigger than [Morgan]. It’s bigger than [the] caravan. But it is gonna help people, just not in a way that [Morgan] is going to like. It’s big boy and big girl stuff.”
That’s it. That’s all we know about Logan’s plan, eleven episodes into the season. That his need for gas is “big boy and big girl” stuff. By the end of the episode, Logan also thinks he’s found a way to locate the gas fields so that he can execute his “big boy” plan. Is he going to kill someone? Torture someone? Trick someone? Kidnap someone?
Nope. He’s gonna watch Althea’s videos. That’s his evil, insidious plan to locate the gas: He’s going to watch a bunch of videotapes. Terrifying.
Logan makes me miss the Trash Lady.
