FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, Season 8, Episode 12, THE ROAD AHEAD

Written By:

Rich Cross

FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, Season 8, Episode 12, THE ROAD AHEAD

Given the problems that have afflicted Fear in its final season, the worry was that everything would unravel at the very moment it all needed to come together. So it’s welcome to be able to report that the writers of this final episode, Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, have put together the kind of sign-off that the show needed, at least from the point of view of servicing its key characters. The hopes of long-term Fear fans have very clearly loomed large in their consideration, and (with one notable exception) everyone in the main ensemble who’s survived to this point gets an end story.

None of which should be read to mean that The Road Ahead is an inspired farewell. Because it’s not; it’s a messy, flawed and frankly idiotic story that seems unaware of just how nonsensical its main narrative is. But the showrunners do deserve credit for the effort they’ve made to wrangle something coherent out of a mythology that’s long since descended into disorder. They don’t really succeed, but there’s evidence of genuine effort – something that’s been painfully absent in more than a few of this season’s episodes.

Shocked by Troy’s disclosure about her lineage, Tracy has fled into the woods to hide. When Madison – who now sees herself as Tracy’s grandmother – finds her, she tells everyone that the two of them will locate Alicia’s corpse and put Madison’s daughter (and Tracy’s mother) to rest. A confrontation with Luciana and Daniel encourages Tracy to think that Madison might now genuinely want to protect her. When Strand arrives and insists on taking Tracy to PADRE, Madison fires her handgun and attracts a herd of walkers, who lay siege to Luciana’s garage.

The remaining militiamen from Troy’s group have piloted a barge bursting with walkers upriver to PADRE. Panic ensues inside as the undead surround the walls. Prisoner Russell warns of the plan to force the community from the safety of PADRE just as explosions rock the compound. Dwight rallies his troops for a battle to the death, while Strand tries to convince a reluctant Madison to risk everything and join the fight to save PADRE. This sense of entrapment and jeopardy provides the background for the show’s now-signature motifs: characters accusing each other of betrayal, shooting guns at one another, and making and breaking agreements without rhyme or reason.

In terms of the main PADRE story, despite some well-shot nighttime combat, almost all of what follows fails to convince. The defences of this impenetrable fortress, which so many people have died in the struggle to control, give way after a single inbound salvo renders the place uninhabitable. Madison, who’s made the survival of PADRE indivisible from her own redemption, is so preoccupied with thoughts of Alicia that she chooses to stay away as Dwight, his team, and the children fight for their collective lives. After building up the significance of PADRE for countless episodes, the writing team effectively abandons the place with barely a backward glance.

And that carelessness is nothing compared to a pivotal moment in the Madison story that’s so impossibly cheesy that director Michael Satrazemis really should have served it with crackers and chutney. That event is part of Tracy’s implausible storyline, which leads to her reconciliation with Madison (shortly after she attempts to kill her). This culminates in a much-anticipated but far-from-guaranteed reunion and Madison’s elevation to the status of a near-mythical mentor – something already awarded to Alicia.

Throughout this season, Madison has flipped between self-obsessed cynicism and altruistic optimism, and the writers here attempt to slam the brakes on that endless cycle. Alongside that, the ensemble of characters who’ve battled through to this ending are each given their brief reflective moment in the limelight before they head out in different directions to their separate futures. It’s the kind of fan-pleasing send-off that genre showrunners ignore at their peril, and it’s certain to draw plaudits.

But the positive feelings that this might engender should not be allowed to distract attention from the compound failings that have crippled Fear in its later years. The first three seasons of the show offered exciting, innovative and unexpected drama that cast new and different light on the world of the zombie apocalypse. Things then began to unravel as the show stumbled and then lost its way in obsessively exploring what became dramatic cul-de-sacs and dead-ends. The final season has to be judged as the show’s least successful and most infuriating. For The Walking Dead, “the road ahead” must now take the franchise as far as possible from the final resting place of Fear.

New episodes of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD – SEASON 8 premiered on Mondays on AMC in the UK