‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Episode 1.4 “Not Fade Away” (5.5 out of 10) Created by Dave Erickson & Robert Kirkman; Starring Cliff Curtis, Kim Dickens, Frank Dillane, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Rubén Blades, Mercedes Mason; Sundays on AMC.
Despite the fact that tonight’s episode had a lot of characters yelling and running around with worried expressions, nothing really happened until the last ten minutes or so. With our heroes getting picked up by the military, who have erected a safe zone within the suburban area of Madison’s (Kim Dickens) home, the younger cast has a lot of time to get on the adults’ nerves. Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) gets there first by annoying the audience with his amateur videography, and then by annoying his father Travis (Cliff Curtis) because he sees a glint of light coming from a house outside of the military’s safe zone. Travis blows him off, his go-to strategy for dealing with his son, but Chris’s inexplicably strong sense of social justice prods him to bug other people with his revelation. Nick (Frank Dillane) is revealed to be creepily lurking underneath the makeshift hospital beds so he can siphon patients’ morphine drips—totally icky. I get that Nick’s drug addiction is supposed to be a point of conflict for the show, but damn if this move doesn’t drain all of the sympathy out of the character. Finally, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) has taken to throwing herself around the safe zone, unable to get over the loss of her one true love. She didn’t get a ton of screentime tonight, but it was all whiny, dead boyfriend stuff. All I can really say is that all three of these characters could use a serious dose of Rick Grimes right about now.
If watching this episode made you want to slap all three of these knuckleheads around, you’re not alone. It’s only four episodes in, and I don’t think anyone would care that much if any or all of these kids get mauled by the undead. Thus far, all they’ve managed to do is gripe about how badly the end of the world has inconvenienced them. It makes no sense to build a show upon “The Walking Dead”—a story that prizes multi-dimensional characters who can be both selfish and selfless depending on the situation—and repopulate it with soulless teenage caricatures. Not only does it make half of the cast emotionally expendable to the audience, but it does a disservice to the show’s younger audience. Instead of getting complex characters that they can relate to, they get condescending brats that only serve to reinforce the world’s negative stereotypes about teenagers.
On the flipside, the adult characters have gotten the bulk of the writers’ attention. Both Travis and Madison have consistently stuck to their characters. Now that they’re in the military’s care, Travis is all about compromise and working with the military hierarchy for what they perceive as the greater good. Madison, on the other hand, is mistrustful and even sneaks outside the safe zone in order to investigate the glint of light that Chris won’t shut up about. As martial law begins to tighten its grip on the civilians in its charge—coldly personified by the arrival of Dr. Bethany Exner (Sandrine Holt)—Chris, Madison, and Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) all find themselves on different sides of the situation. When Dr. Exner brings the cavalry in to pack Nick and Griselda (Patricia Reyes Spíndola) off to an undisclosed location, Madison blames the whole thing on Liza, which puts Travis in an awkward situation. At the end of the episode, it feels like Madison is more comfortable with Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) than she is with Travis.
The military internment of these two characters was the most dramatic moment in an episode that didn’t really feel like it had much direction, but once again we’re faced with a completely predictable situation. As soon as I saw the military show up last week, I knew that something like this would happen—I’ve seen it in a zillion zombie shows already. Think about what a breath of fresh air it would have been to see the military roll up and actually help people instead of carry out some shady agenda.
Since the pilot episode, I was worried that “Fear the Walking Dead” would just be another mishmash of zombie clichés, and tonight’s episode pretty much confirmed that for me. It’s a zombie show inspired by market research and demographic trends rather than good story and character development—in short, the zombies are now making TV about zombies.