OK, They Get it Now

On the top of my list of Cities I Would Not Want to be Living in When The Zombie Apocalypse Happens, I’m pretty sure L.A. is right up there.

I really liked this episode. I mean, it scared me and made me very anxious the entire time, which means they are doing it right.

At first, in the opening scene with the principal walking the deserted school I wasn’t clear on what the time frame was, but then when we got to Maddie and Travis in the truck with Nick, I realized that we had lost really no time since the end of the last episode, and I remembered that the school closed early and that’s why it was abandoned (for now).

I like that now that Maddie and Travis know something is very wrong they’re not wasting time trying to explain it away or figure out why or what, they’re just like “We need to get the eff out of here right now.”

I could not possibly have been more anxious when Alicia was wandering slowly into Matt’s clearly not-quite-right home. Even though I don’t like her yet (I hope I will) I don’t want her to be eaten by her zombie boyfriend on the second episode. It might bother some people but I appreciate the suspense the show is building by doing things like they did with this scene, where she found something that we couldn’t see and then they cut away so we have to wait to see what it is.

Now that things are really going downhill quickly I started to find myself expecting a zombie around every corner again, which was the scary kind of thrill I used to get all the time at the beginning of The Walking Dead. Which, by the way, I’m not faulting for adjusting their focus from zombies to their fellow man. But it is exciting to be back to that early sense of panic and impending doom.

Some of my favorite moments in this episode are summarized below, in no particular order.

• Maddie telling Nick, “You saved us. Thank you.” Yeah he did, give the guy some credit! He’s pretty messed up but he still came through. You’re welcome, doubting Thomas.

• Liza getting a glimpse of the homeless man supposedly shot “for no reason” by the cops, where her son was protesting and, I assume, having some medical training as she does, deciding something was very wrong. Immediately turning to Chris and saying, “Listen to your father” with resolve. That was her moment of OK, we need to get out of here.
• Poor Tobias showing up at the school, and the look he and Maddie exchanged that was just kind of like “Yeah, we both get it.” ?
• Maddie dropping Tobias off at home and saying, “You can stay with us, there’s room,” and when he refused the look they exchanged.

• Maddie bashing Art’s head in with a fire extinguisher. Future bad%#$ in the making.
• The sad reality of how quickly looting and mayhem descends on downtown L.A. I mean I’ve seen ridiculous behavior in my own city in celebration of a sports team winning or losing. Let’s certainly not pretend that we wouldn’t almost instantly descend into utter chaos in light of something like a zombie apocalypse.
• The open trunk and only partially unloaded luggage at Matt’s home in the driveway in a quick follow up shot near the end of the show, complete with open front door.

• I actually liked that Matt told Alicia to leave with her family. He knows what’s up.

The only thing I can really find to complain about in this episode is the fact that so far they literally have killed off every black man in the show. I know we didn’t see Matt’s death but his fate is clear. It really is lazy or weird casting to let this trend continue. Let’s be smart, guys, and not keep it up. It’s upsetting to viewers and utterly unnecessary. Even if you want to kill those characters, how about you cast differently then? Just make better decisions.

Here is a pretty good article about the episode on Vox.

You can always come back to the Fear the Walking Dead tag on this site to read everything we’ve written about it, and remember to come back each week for a recap by yours truly!

What do you think so far? Please leave your comments below!