The first season of Fear the Walking Dead has come and gone. The short, six episode season felt at once hurried and plodding. The breakdown of civilization occurred largely off camera, which is a shame. I was looking forward to seeing civilization crumble. Instead we got a very contained version of the zombie apocalypse.
Thankfully, the Season 1 finale was pretty good. Tonight's episode, "The Good Man" was largely an action affair. The survivors break camp once they find out they're being abandoned. (I misinterpreted last week's episode and thought the military planned to flat out kill all the survivors before retreating; I'm happy I was wrong about that.)
Read More: 5 Big Problems With 'Fear The Walking Dead'
Salazar wants to kill Andy the soldier but Travis, the titular "Good Man" not only prevents him from doing so, he frees Andy. I can get behind the former decision but not the latter, and of course later that choice comes back to haunt him.
The strategy Salazar and company employ to distract the soldiers is a bold one. They free the stadium filled with infected and turn them loose on the military compound. All hell breaks loose.
In the confusion, Nick and Strand escape. Madison, Travis, Ofelia and Salazar all break into the compound, leaving Alicia and Chris outside with the SUV. Why do people split up like this in these kind of shows? Who leaves a pair of dumb teenagers to fend for themselves?
In any case, I'll gloss over the ensuing action. Soldiers take the SUV but the kids are fine. Madison and Travis show up just in the nick of time to save Nick and Strand, but it's Liza who saves the day.
The facilities are overrun by infected and soldiers die right and left. The evacuation helicopter doesn't land, leaving a hospital full of sick and wounded to die. Yes, the survivors' strategy to save Nick and Griselda works (well, Griselda is dead but Nick is rescued) but in the process they've condemned countless others to die.
Such is the new life of survival, one that's hard learned by our survivors but learned nonetheless. When everything finally seems hunky-dory Andy shows back up and shoots Ofelia. I think he does it to cause Salazar pain, though it's not really explained or presented that clearly. My best guess is that instead of shooting Salazar he shoots Ofelia to hurt the man who tortured him, but it's a weird moment. I thought Andy was an okay guy, but I guess vengeance is a dish best served cold.
This is where Travis really snaps and goes full Rick Grimes, beating Andy close to death. I suspect he's a goner now that he's so badly injured, but Travis doesn't land the killing blow. He's zombie food at this point anyways.
Instead of heading out to the desert, which I was actually looking forward to, the survivors go with Strand to his swank mansion on the beach where he's got some food and supplies and a plan to somehow get on board a yacht named Abigail.
Which isn't a bad idea, for the survivors and for the show itself. A high seas zombie survival show could be really interesting. They could travel from port to port trying to fuel up and get supplies. Maybe they could even run into pirates and other seafaring unsavories.
In the relative safety of this new sanctuary, Liza reveals that she's been bitten. She asks Madison to finish her off since she can't muster the guts to do it herself but Travis, the Good Man, intervenes and tries to stop the whole thing. "We have medicine," he says, lamely. And then he relents, and he puts a bullet through his ex-wife's forehead.
I'm kind of disappointed that it was Liza who had to go. She was a pretty tough character and didn't make a lot of the unreasonable decisions other characters made. Even her big mistake landing Nick in trouble was made out of naivete rather than just plain stupidity. She was trying to help.
But they had to kill of somebody at this point, and I suppose Liza wasn't a surprising choice. Actress Elizabeth Rodriguez is busy with other projects like Orange is the New Black so that may have something to do with it.
All told I liked this finale. The action was non-stop and pretty exciting. It's been a while since we've seen zombies in the show and we saw plenty of them tonight. None of the characters made really bad or implausible decisions, and we actually saw some pretty real character growth and acceptance of reality in Travis especially tonight, which was nice.
I'm looking forward to next season actually, even though Fear the Walking Dead isn't as good or enticing as its parent show.
Speaking of which, The Walking Dead premieres next Sunday. I'll have a preview out this week and, of course, a recap/review out after the first episode. If you're watching The Flash and/or Arrow look for my reviews this week as well.
What shows are you looking forward to this Fall? And what did you think about the finale of Fear the Walking Dead? Shout out in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook.
