Look, Fear the Walking Dead is not a very good show. We know this. It’s canon. But once in a while it can show glimpses of something better, more imaginative, more daring. Yesterday’s “The Unveiling” worked when it reached those heights. “Children of Wrath” is a lesser episode, but not by much, and it promises a more character-based approach to the show, which I think could work. There’s a very small central cast here – five main characters – as opposed to The Walking Dead, which has over a dozen. With some canny writing, Fear could become the post-apocalyptic drama that its sister program once aspired to be.
After “The Unveiling,” “Children” just feels like more of the same. There’s a lot of hemming and hawing about peace and war, secrets are revealed, and there’s the occasional shootout. It feels like din, white noise against which the show tells the story it wants to tell. Unfortunately, some of that story has been told before.
Some of the most interesting character work done in this episode is with Ofelia, who absolutely poisoned the coffee at the camp (Walker later reveals that it was anthrax, unbeknownst to her; gotta make sure she’s completely blameless if she’s going to rejoin the main group). The episode starts with a largely unnecessary flashback, showing a truncated version of Ofelia’s time in the desert. It establishes only a few things: one, that Walker took her in, which we already knew and thus didn’t need to see; and two, Jeremiah Otto is not just a prickly old man, but a deeply racist one, telling Ofelia to go back where she came from because she wouldn’t fit in at Brokejaw because of the dearth of “brown people.” Jeremiah has never been the cuddliest character, which worked to the show’s benefit, but in its rush to make him into the villain that it needs, he becomes almost cartoonish, which just helps feed the show’s worst impulses when it comes to Nick.
Nick, whose haircut now matches his demeanor, that of a petulant boy, quickly takes Walker’s side when Jeremiah tells him that he killed Walker’s father and uncle. (And he also gets over his anthrax poisoning very quickly, even suggesting that Jake take his hospital bed.) A lot of “Children of Wrath” is spent watching Jeremiah go on racist tirades, but to the show’s credit they cast one of the best actors to saddle with this dialogue. Dayton Callie has usually played decent if flawed men, on Deadwood and Sons of Anarchy, and it’s interesting to hear him same world-weary inflection lent to lines like “Land belongs to whoever holds it. Indians couldn’t do it. They traded it all for beer money.”
There’s a semi-interesting conflict in “Children” between Madison and her kids. Madison hates Walker because he killed Travis; Nick and Alicia hate Jeremiah because he killed Walker’s relatives. And there’s no easy way to put this: this would play better if Walker weren’t Native American. Because he is, and because Nick and Alicia feel not only that they need to stick up for him but that he needs sticking up for at all, the whole storyline flirts uncomfortably with White Savior narrative. As much as I like Michael Greyeyes as Walker, it feels like Fear really backed itself into a corner with this character.
It’s not even Walker who secures the peace between the two groups, which is disappointing. Granted, he’s pretty set on war at this point, but let’s not forget that as recently as the previous episode, he was willing to sit down to a parlay with Jake. It wasn’t out of the question. He gets a few good scenes in; Madison offers to return his stolen relics, as well as his ancestors’ bones, if they can all live in peace. Walker tells her simply that the bones aren’t good enough and he wants the ranch. It’s cool to see him stick to his guns and not be placated; for a time it seems as though he’s one of the few people who a Clark can’t sweet-talk into doing whatever they want. (For a time.)
Strand isn’t given much to do, but then again he hasn’t been given much to do for the entire season. He finds his way back to the Abigail, clears out the walkers, and then has the best scene in the movie, where he picks up a radio signal from a Russian space station and has a conversation with a cosmonaut named Leschenko. Colman Domingo’s effortless delivery lets him excel at scenes like this, when he’s by himself, and he does a predictably great job at almost succeeding when he tries to mask the desperation behind Strand’s nonchalance. Plus, when he sets the boat on fire and puts on a pair of aviator sunglasses, we get to see what Domingo would look like if he were in a John Carpenter movie, because that’s exactly what this shot reminds me of. Seriously, as much as I hate the idea of a remake of They Live, Domingo would be great in the Keith David role.
When Walker was introduced as this season’s ostensible villain, I predicted that Nick would kill him. Now that Jeremiah is firmly established as the villain, guess what happens. The most frustrating part about this is that it comes as a lame finisher to a decent scene, wherein Madison tells Jeremiah that his death will secure peace. She won’t do it, because she doesn’t want to disappoint her children, but she reasons with him: if you do this, she says, it will save the lives of everyone at this ranch, including your sons. This should be a searing, devastating moment, where someone only a few months removed from a job as a high school guidance counselor has to convince an old man that the most selfless thing he can do is kill himself.
Then Nick walks in, wordlessly, and shoots Jeremiah almost instantly. It just reminds the viewer that Fear the Walking Dead will always, always bend over backwards to give Nick Clark his hero moment. What this tells us is: villains die only by the grace of Nick. They exist to serve his development. And furthermore, all morning I’ve been reading headlines about the “jaw-dropping” and “explosive” finale. What the fuck were those in reference to? This scene? This is why click-bait is such a problem.
This first half of Fear‘s third season was…uneven. Sometimes infuriating. But it seems like a lot of the actors (Kim Dickens, Mercedes Mason, Alycia Debnam-Carey) have really grown into their roles, and there were some nice new additions (Dan Charman and Sam Underwood). For the first time in a long time, things haven’t returned to the status quo, as Madison is apparently running the camp now (yes, this is almost beat for beat what happened in Alexandria, but let’s accept that and move past it). Well, she’s running until episode ten or eleven, at which point Nick will surely be in charge. All hail Nick, our benevolent ruler.
“Children of Wrath” score: 2.5/5
Fear the Walking Dead season 3A score: 3/5
About Author
