'Fear the Walking Dead' Review: In Trouble In More Ways Than One
The third episode of Fear The Walking Dead on Sunday night was markedly inferior to the series’ first two installments, and made me wonder whether the series is committed to becoming the brooding mood-piece its initial, excellent hours were.
The episode, titled “The Dog,” with a script by Jack LoGiudice and (as was true of the first two) direction by Adam Davidson, was essentially a trapped-room drama, with Madison and her kids in one house, and Travis, ex-wife Liza, Chris and the Salazar family in the Salazar’s shop/home, waiting out the nighttime riots.
At its best, director Davidson established the feeling of people under siege well, with the threat of riot attacks handled in a manner that reminded me of John Carpenters’ 1976 film Assault on Precinct 13. But there’s only so much time you can spend with trapped people without feeling trapped yourself. By the time Ruben Blades’ Daniel began showing Chris how to use a shotgun, I had started wishing there might be a credible reason for someone to get an itchy trigger finger — this show needed some action.
Related: ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘It’s Already Too Late’
It’s become clear that one of the challenges of Fear is that, because we as viewers know more than the characters about the nature of the zombie apocalypse, this frequently puts us in the position of watching and saying impatiently, “Come on, come on, don’t you know you should be slamming that knife into that moving corpse’s brain?” The doling out of slow-earned wisdom — “They don’t die; they keep coming back,” was tidbit earned tonight — might be greeted by a Walking Dead fan with a no-kiddin’ shrug.
“The Dog” tried to muster up some poignance by having a dog die and Madison’s next-door neighbor succumb to a zombie state that her husband is shocked to discover. (It was the ultimate, “Honey, I’m home!” surprise.) But arriving after an absence of two weeks, Fear the Walking Dead didn’t really make good on elements a new show must develop: Forward momentum, and a deepening of regular-character details. There were times when that game of Monopoly Maddy played with the kids was more absorbing than the episode itself.
Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
