SHOCK takes FEAR THE WALKING DEAD’s finale to task, one scene at a time…
Madison and Travis are packing up the cars – time to get the hell out of Dodge. Daniel is ready to kill Andy, but Travis insists on keeping him alive, at least until they get to the field hospital. Travis clearly doesnt want to kill Andy, but Andy knows it is coming. For now, though, he rides with Travis as the family takes three cars out of the quarantine zone. There is not a single soldier left at the gate; everyone evacuated.
After parking in an off-site garage and leaving Alicia and Chris to watch the cars, Daniel strolls up to the sentry tower. He mocks them until the enormous herd of zombies – thousands of them – amble up behind him. The guards turn their attention to the living dead, and he, Madison, Travis, and Ofelia enter the compound through a different entrance. While Daniel was parading the zombies, Travis let Andy go, which pissed off Daniel, but he has more important things to worry about.
At the field hospital, Dr. Exner is frustrated, trying to organize evacuations for her patients as well as her staff. She hears chaos outside and sees the compound under attack. She sends her staff out to grabs transportation out of the hot zone, and she promises to handle the patients. Liza doesnt want to leave without Chris, but Exner tells her that if he isnt with the evac troupe, he is dead. Liza heads down to the evac, but cant bring herself to leave – she wants her son.
When the lights start to go out in the detention center, Strand and Nick make their move. Strand declines to let anyone else out: Helping them will hurt us, he explains. The two make their way through the halls, looking for a ride. His plan is to get to Abigail. The fences outside collapse, letting the hordes of walkers into the compound. It isnt long before Strand and Nick are stuck between a rock and a hard place – or a locked door and a zombie place.
Daniels team makes it inside to the detention center. Madison and Travis free as many people as they can, and the detainees point them in Nicks direction. Madison finally finds him, cornered by the hungry horde. They look at each other through the window of the locked door. Madison cant break the door open, so Nick motions for her to leave. But Liza comes along and saves the day with her key card, and the door pops open. Unfortunately, they dont close it securely so the horde follows them through the halls.
The group rushes through the compound and the kitchen, killing zombies on their way to the medical bay. Liza leads them there, hoping that Exner can get them out. Liza also breaks it to the Salazars that Griselda is dead, and that there is nothing left to see. When they get to the makeshift hospital, Exner is sitting there, expressionless. She has killed every living, uninfected patient in the ward, figuring there was no way out and it was a kinder death. Madison fills up on drugs while Exner directs them to a sub-level they can exit through. Exner doesnt go with them. According to Madison, shes lost. Madison tells Strand they are planning to head east, but he tells them to head west, to his beach house, loaded with supplies.
By the time our group gets out of the building, all is quiet. There is nothing living or unliving as day breaks. They hurry back to the garage to find Chris and Alicia hiding, and one of the cars gone. A trio of military men came in, hassled the kids, and took one of the cars. When Chris defended Alicias honor, he got knocked out for his trouble. Before the seriously blended family can pile into the two remaining cars, Andy pops out from nowhere, a gun in his hand. He threatens Daniel with it, but Ofelia tries to talk him down, so he shoots her instead. (It turns out that it was just a through-and-through in the arm. Ofelia will be fine.) Travis is enraged and beats the hell out of him. Madison has to stop him, and while Andy is alive when they pull out of the garage, it likely isnt for very long.
Everything in Los Angeles is eerily still. There is not a single person out, not a car on the street – except for the cars jammed onto the eastbound freeway, making it look like a parking lot (or, you know, a Tuesday). Strand tells Madison to follow the river around the city.
Strand lives in a multi-million dollar mansion on the cliffs overlooking the beach. The group is taken with the modern splendor, the views, the fridge full of food. But Strand doesnt intend on staying – he is going to Abigail. He finally shows Nick, with very high-powered binoculars, that Abigail is a ship floating in the middle of the ocean. It is unclear if Strand plans on taking Nick and his family on the yacht with him.
Madison sees Liza make her way down the cliff to the waters edge, so she follows. She can tell something is wrong. Liza reveals that she was bit. She didnt notice it until they got out of the chaos, but now she wants to kill herself before she turns. She doesnt want Chris to see her like that. She asks Madison to shoot her, and while she doesnt relish the idea, she takes the gun from Liza. Travis finds them before anything can happen, and begs her not to do this. He says they have the treatment from the medical center, but Liza tells him it doesnt work. The bite wont kill her, but the infection will, and the dead always come back. Realizing this is the only option, Travis shoots his ex-wife in the head. Madison holds him while he cries into the surf.
So weve come to the end of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD. Quite frankly, Im not impressed. For a show that advertised being a look at the first days of the zombie apocalypse, they sure rushed through it. We go from riots and the start of an epidemic to a police state in the span of an episode. There was no sense of discovery. Sure, the audience knows all about the zombie apocalypse, but the characters dont. In this universe, zombies dont exist – at all. Not in the movies, in literature, in video games. The dead coming back to life should cause some disbelief.
FEAR ends in basically the same way THE WALKING DEAD ended their first season: our core group of survivors leaving the big city. We saw aerial views of the freeway jammed with cars with not a single car going the other way. This is just like TWD proper, but with the freeways pointing out of Atlanta. I am not familiar with Atlanta, but I was born and raised in Los Angeles. There are multiple routes away from downtown; to have not a single car on the other side of the road is insane.
What was very strange to me was that, on their way out of town, Madisons group did not encounter any other humans. None. I dont believe that all four million residents of Los Angeles were either killed or perfectly comfortable sitting at home, waiting things out. Its almost like the producers had never been to Los Angeles. There are certain challenges of setting a TV show in a huge metropolis like Los Angeles. If you arent up to the task, choose another location.
Luckily, old-school THE WALKING DEAD starts up next week, so hopefully that will wash the taste of FEAR out of my mouth.
