Maybe last week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead got me too excited, because “Ouroboros” was a step backwards for the show. It definitely had its moments, but it didn’t show the promise that week’s “We All Fall Down” did. The problem spots of FTWD remain problems, and when the show adjusts it often does so too much in one direction.
The opening is well-shot and nicely chaotic, and I appreciate the compressed timeframe. But something about it bugged me, and I think I know what it was: I never watched the plane-based webisodes this summer which introduced these characters. In a weird way it offended me. I’m supposed to watch an entire season of Fear the Walking Dead, then watch webisodes all summer long, then start a new season? Goddamn, TV watching shouldn’t be a year-round experience. Not everything needs to be so fuckin’ immersive. So because I didn’t watch supplemental material to a quite frankly unpromising show means I have no idea what the fuck is going on now?
The structure of “Ouroboros” is solid. The Abigail is stalled in the water, leaving the group exposed. It’s up to Travis to repair the water intake, which is clogged with the arm of one of the plane crash victims. Things are getting tense on board, as no one is quite sure what the chain of command is. Travis resents being ordered around by Strand, who resents being ordered around by Maddie, and the kids are of a mind that they should have more autonomy. I won’t lie, everyone was pretty annoying in “Ouroboros,” but it was actually kind of understandable.
At least the episode wasn’t just an hour of people bitching at each other. Chris, Nick, Alicia, and Salazar go ashore to an island to rummage for supplies among the debris of the aircraft. Despite agreeing to chaperon this weird field trip, Salazar insists that it’s bad luck to steal from the dead – so why the hell did you come? All I want, FTWD, is some consistency.
The island is a great location. It’s beautifully shot, and it’s so isolated that it looks as though the characters are on another planet – which in a way they are. Unfortunately, it’s here that Fear the Walking Dead shows some serious narrative problems in the forms of Nick and Chris.
Let’s talk about Chris first, because honestly Chris is more fun to bitch about. Kid is the worst, right? But it’s in “Ouroboros” that I realized the real problem with Chris, in that he’s a badly stitched-together Frankenstein’s monster of zombie-movie cliches. He’s satisfied at least three of them – Chris is the guy who gets too excited about killing zombies, the guy who is in angry denial over the death of a loved one, and the guy who has to put someone out of his misery. Chris is FTWD‘s way to indulge its worst tendencies.
But so is Nick! Last week I bitched that the show is going out of its way to make Nick a hero, and boy does “Ouroboros” turn that up to eleven. Nick is sensitive and deep, you guys. Here he sits down with Salazar to tell him what kind of medication Ofelia needs – then, to the surprise of no one, he actually finds some. And he gets her a rosary to go with it. Then, when all seems lost, he shows up to save the entire group’s ass. While dressed in a pilot’s shirt, because Fear decided to eschew subtlety this week.
This episode wasn’t all bad. It’s nice to see any episode of this franchise that emphasizes the danger of, you know, zombies. We can only sit through so many heavy-handed installments showing that people are the real danger. The promise of Strand’s house in Baja California has promise, but let’s not pretend it’ll last that long. But with relationships deteriorating quickly, I hope Fear the Walking Dead can keep us interested. It needs to be more like last week and less like this week. I know the show is capable.
A Few Thoughts
- Right away I’m calling bullshit on Nick finding a pocket knife in someone’s luggage. What airline in the world lets you pack a knife in your suitcase?
- Those sand crabs eating the half-buried walker was a great shot. More of that, please.
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