Look, guys, there’s a very important lessen to be learned from season two of Fear the Walking Dead: I am always right. I said Luciana would fall in love with Nick, and I was right, then I said that Nick would become the new leader of the colonia, and I was super right. That’s all stuff we’ll talk about later on in the review, but I wanted to get my gloating out of the way early on. (Also, I saw a character named Reynaldo in the credits, so I was also right about Fear thinking all Hispanic males have names ending in O.)
Of the two episodes that make up Fear‘s season finale, “Wrath” and “North,” “Wrath” is unquestionably the better installment. Much of it revolves around Travis discovering Brandon and Derek at the hotel. These two have long since become cartoons, as they say everyone around them smells like “Mexcrement,” which beyond being racist isn’t even clever. After 24 hours at the hotel, everyone has already discovered that they’re awful, which makes what happens next both predictable and oddly satisfying.
First, there’s the genuinely interesting quandary that Maddie is put in, once she learns of Chris’s fate (he supposedly died in a car crash). Does she tell Travis, knowing that he will most likely kill Brandon and Derek? Or does she spare their lives, thereby denying him closure? Ultimately she goes the latter route, but since this is Fear it immediately goes to shit. But this does lead to one of Fear the Walking Dead‘s most impressive scenes: Travis killing Brandon and Derek.
These two are loathsome, odious characters, so their deaths are cathartic, to say the least. But it’s rare to see this show present a protracted scene of ugly, graphic violence, perpetrated by one of its main characters. Travis isn’t as dynamic a character as Rick Grimes or Carol Peltier, but that actually works here because he doesn’t have six seasons of character development. It’s a scene that doesn’t even need to take place in a show about zombies – a grieving father taking revenge on the monsters who killed his son. It’s too bad that Oscar becomes collateral damage in the melee, but it would be even worse if Oscar had been given any time to develop as a character. Did you know he has a brother named Andreas? Because I didn’t.
A lot of “Wrath” and “North” is concerned with Marco’s impending attack on the colonia. Nick argues that they should leave, only to get rebuffed by Alejandro and Luciana with arguments about “faith.” That’s all well and good, but Marco and his dozen men are way better armed, so faith is only going to get you so far. Luciana is particularly maddening in her inconsistency; at one point she says “Do what you do, Nick: run.” What the fuck show are you watching, Luciana? I’m not one to jump to Nick’s defense, but he’s been here for months. He helped stretch the Oxy supply. He learned a language, for Christ’s sake. But since Nick is Nick, he gets his way, but I’m okay with it for once because he’s actually right. Like, from an objective standpoint, not just because Fear needs him to be.
Except until the end, when he’s wrong for the first time this entire season. He leads the group north because he saw a helicopter in that direction, only for the group to be ambushed by some paramilitary types. I don’t know why Nick thought the military was a good option. They ruined everything in season one, and he was literally in a military-run internment camp. And hasn’t he ever seen 28 Days Later? Oh, and Luciana gets killed because like most women in this franchise she only existed to further a man’s development (see: Greene, Beth).
There are some interesting developments, though, and most of them come from Ofelia, surprisingly (who gets a pretty badass fight scene against two walkers). She finds herself in the company of a mysterious rifleman, played by Sons of Anarchy‘s Dayton Callie (who shoots at her and then says “Welcome to America,” which is heavy handed even for this show). I’ll watch Callie in anything, and Ofelia’s one-woman show wasn’t doing anything for me, so I’m cautiously optimistic about this.
So we bid farewell to an uneven, frustrating season of a show where everyone is either a brilliant superhero (Nick) or a mostly helpless dumbass (everyone else). There were flashes of a good show, or a good character, every now and then, so let’s hope we see more of that in season three.
“North” / “Wrath” score: 2.5/5
Fear the Walking Dead season 2B score: 2.5/5
About Author
