by Rich Cross
The third episode of the final season of Fear the Walking Dead is the messiest and most frustrating so far. It fumbles all of the major revelations threaded through its dense and confused plot, stretches credibility and coincidence past breaking point and, in the process, taxes the patience of even the most dedicated viewer.
Madison has been brought to the PADRE medical train (which looks much less impressive in the daylight). Madison learns that blood samples had been taken from her to confirm if there was any genetic component to her daughter Alicia’s resistance to a walker bite. June is now compelled to have Madison bitten by a disembodied walker head so experimental radiation treatments on her can begin. Madison urges June to find the PADRE files which document the locations from which children were abducted and lists their parents. Shrike arrives to gloat over Madison’s fate, but her plans are interrupted when Mo and Dove arrive and a stand-off erupts into gunfire.
A flashback to twelve years earlier reveals that Shrike and her brother Ben are the children of a US army Major General who established the PADRE enclave with very different intentions. When a mission in the nearby container port goes awry, the two siblings have to step up and take charge. Back in the present, June and her group are en route to PADRE when they are intercepted by a militia patrol led by the returning Daniel Salazar. He is rallying a group of bereft parents who are determined to rescue their stolen children from PADRE’s clutches. This group is then ambushed by a Prefect patrol before Madison, Dove, and others head back to PADRE to uncover the files that can confirm the children’s true identities.
The storyline of Odessa makes no concessions to the Fear newcomer and adds further questionable layers to the show’s increasingly convoluted mythology. Antagonists continually confront each other throughout the episode, but loyalties and allegiances flip with scant justification other than to move the plot to the next showdown on the writers’ list. Much of this feels arbitrary and directionless.
The backstory about the origins of PADRE is not handled any better. While it shows that the founding father of the place had laudable motivations, it does nothing to explain why his children should have so distorted his vision. The subsequent discovery of the identity of PADRE feels insignificant because each of the prime candidates has only just been introduced. And as with last week’s episode, the showrunners again attempt to wring emotional impact from the predicaments of characters who have only been written into the script a few pages earlier. In contrast, the news of the infected Finch’s response to the radiation treatment is skated over in seconds.
There is good dramatic material here for the writers to work with. The PADRE ‘child-snatcher’ community continues to be a horrifying idea rich in potential. Madison’s criminal culpability as a ‘Collector’ makes her a conflicted character and a questionable ally for PADRE’s opponents. The swamplands, the shipyard and the enclave all provide decent background settings for character and combat. But this final season is currently falling apart rather than coming together.
There is still time to turn things around. Madison is now fixated on recruiting a new battle-hardened leader able to take the militia’s fight to the gates of PADRE (with, of course, no regard to how Daniel might feel about the implied critique of his own talents). The unhinged Shrike has an equally deranged plan to deal with PADRE’s enemies and to test the mettle of its supporters. A decisive confrontation looms. Let’s just hope that the script editors are not on sabbatical when the armies of the living and of the dead finally meet.
New episodes of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD – SEASON 8 premiere on Mondays on AMC in the UK
Read our previous reviews of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD below:
Season 8, Episode 1, REMEMBER WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU
Season 8, Episode 2, BLUE JAY
