This past week’s episode of Fear The Walking Dead showed us a little bit of Nick and he joined yet another zombie death cult. This one seems to have a “Zombie Jesus” in the form of a leader who survived a zombie bite and did not turn. This seems (for now at least) to finally give Nick a place where not only does he feel welcomed, but he also feels normal in this abnormal world. At the same time, his mother, sister, Ofelia, and Strand found a hotel. While Ofelia has since gone missing, Strand and Madison decided the best thing in a world when zombies can attack you any given moment, is to get drunk and hash out their problems in the loudest way possible. When the episode ended Alicia was on the run from zombies on the upper floors of the hotel while searching for the missing Ofelia and Madison and Strand were slowly being surrounded (and still drunk) by zombies.
This week gave us a change of pace for the most part. The only other group we have yet to see since the mid-season finale was Travis and his soon-to-be serial killer son Chris. Since his mother’s death, Chris has been one bad day away from going full on Governor on Fear The Walking Dead. During the mid-season finale, Travis was trying to get through to Chris, who had the itch to kill Alicia and Madison, and bring him back to the good side. Realizing his son was too far gone, for the time being, he told Nick to forget he saw them as he and Chris were going to be on their own for the time being.
This week, Travis and Chris were out on the lam, and it already seemed like it is going to be a bumpy ride for them. Travis is suffering a foot infection and Chris was already off to making some bone-headed decisions. Earlier on, Chris steals food and water from someone else and lies to his father about how he came across the supplies. This being the world of The Walking Dead, Chris is in full on survivor mode in a dog-eat-dog world. His father, not so much. Travis still has hope that eventually things will get back to normal. The world will get back on its right foot when the zombie apocalypse is over and we have to retain our humanity. They do find a little bit of time to bond. Travis even teaches his son to drive the car they stole in the process. Once they run out of gas, they set up a camp where they get to spend some time together. Travis’ plan is for the two of them to just settle in the open country together. Chris seemingly knows that it's because no one else will be around and Travis doesn’t fully trust Chris around regular people yet.
Unfortunately for the two of them, they are soon met up by some people. The people that Chris robbed of supplies found them. Instead of the usual Walking Dead fight over supplies trope, the new group of people, vacationing “bros” from San Diego aren’t too upset and the entire group camps together. Unfortunately for Travis, their newfound friends have a similar attitude of Chris and they are quite comfortable in the new world. While Travis says to Chris that they aren’t his people, Chris seems to want to fit right in with them. The next day Chris even spots out a farm for them to check out and raid to see about supplies.
On that farm, Travis continues to be the moral conscience of the show. Realizing that this is someone’s farm and that they still might be around, he believes that they do not have any right raiding someone’s supplies. Chris and the apocalypse bros aren’t paying Travis too much mind until that person comes with his shotgun out. While Travis tries to defuse the tense situation, the apocalypse bros already have their guns out and are claiming the crops and chicken for their own. After the farmer shoots one of the bros, it seemed as though the situation was dying down and Travis had everything under control. Just then Chris takes a gun and shoots the farmer to the horror of Travis. Chis might be too far gone for Travis to control.
Meanwhile, Alicia is on the run from zombies in the hotel and she is searching for Ofelia. Downstairs she knows that her mother and Strand are in trouble, so she has to move quickly and stay alive in the process. We get to see a few badass moments for Alicia where she dispatches of a few zombies as well, letting us know that in addition to Chris and her brother Nick, she also is adapting to this world. While escaping from the zombies, she goes into an elevator shaft and after narrowly avoiding the zombies, she meets one of the survivors of the hotel.
During a flashback in the shows intro, we got a chance to see the wedding party that was severely trashed last week in a flashback. A happy bride and groom were celebrating wedded bliss just as the zombie apocalypse was beginning. Everyone there knows there was a “sickness” going on but did not want to let that interrupt the marriage ceremony. During the reception, the bride’s father had a heart attack and the unfortunate bride tried to give her father mouth to mouth to unexpected results. One of the hotel workers, Elena, in hope of containing the “sickness” locked the entire wedding party in the reception hall leading them to their assumed deaths.
Elena frees Alicia and together the two look for her mother, Strand, and the hotel worker’s cousin Hector, who is also missing. Turns out some of those people survived and are quite pissed that they were locked in a room to be eaten by their former friends. Even though Elena is punished with guilt, that’s not enough for them. Alicia is somewhat caught in the middle between Elena and the wedding guests and sides with Elena. Opening a door full of zombies on the other side provides enough distraction for her, Elana, and Hector to run away. As they escape into the basement of the hotel with a few zombies in tow they finally make it to a locked door where after some banging her mother and Strand open it up to save them in the nick of time.
This episode gave us a lot of Alicia who within one episode went from somewhat whiney daughter/sister to outright badass. Watching her dispatch a few zombie and outsmart humans to get the zombies to attack them reminded me a little bit of Carol on The Walking Dead. She may be cute and somewhat innocent, that doesn’t mean that she won’t get down to business when she needs to. Alicia also seems to have newfound gymnast skills as she had two feats of climbing from great heights. One was in the elevator shaft where she avoided getting bitten and scratched by zombies while hanging on the elevator line as well as climbing on the balcony of one hotel room and climbing to another room at least 8 stories up and under the threat of zombies getting to her any second. She is slowly learning what it takes to survive in this world. It’s not just being able to use a knife but also being able o think on the fly when the moment calls for drastic action.
On the flip side, Travis might be too good for this world. He is still holding on to the hope, unlike his son Chris, who is keeping track of how many zombies he has killed. Chris might be too far gone. Not only did he quickly side with people they just met, but he is the one who shot the farmer who was just protecting his own property. Nick might end up being the “Lizzie” of Fear The Walking Dead. The big question is will Travis have to make his own son “look at the flowers” and put him out of his own misery? Chris and how nonchalant he is about taking life is almost the origin story of a supervillain in this new world. Just like Lizzie, he can’t be around people.
Next week we get to see more of our favorite character Nick and he is becoming more at ease with his newfound friends and Zombie Jesus. We also get to see how Madison and Strand got out of their dilemma (which we didn’t get to see this week).
