Fear the Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Good Man” Review

This Sunday FINALLY brought us to the end of Fear the Walking Dead’s first season. Despite being only six episodes long, it has felt like a walk from Atlanta to Los Angeles with the worst road crew imaginable to keep us company. But maybe…just maybe…the season finale will give us something worth watching.

Is it good?

Andy’s Gambit

Poor Andy. He tries to convince Daniel to not kill him (or give any more monologues about life in El Salvador) by claiming that he can help the group find their missing loved ones at the medical center. He also knows that Daniel is going to kill him the first chance he gets. He makes the same argument to Travis, who decides to let him go.

You can already see where this is going?

Daniel’s Gambit

Daniel is a short-sighted asshole.

Look, I get that he wants to do anything possible to save his family. But if Mr. Cold-and-Calculating really doesn’t care about dooming the west coast’s last bastion of humanity to death, then there are a few things he should have considered before releasing the Grateful Dead from their arena holding pen.

• Remember how he talked about people who got taken away (in El Salvador) being executed? Didn’t he consider that Griselda, who was clearly on the other side of healthy, might have already been dead?
• If Griselda was still alive (HA! You’re in for a big surprise, Salazar!), that gigantic horde of walkers was going present a very big problem getting back out.

But as we’ve seen countless other times on this show, these characters are idiots. Salazar enacts his plans, causing the military to freak out and begin shooting at the zombies with stormtrooper-esque aim. They also fail to use any heavy artillery or more than the minimal amount of air support. Not even those grenades from last episode — the ones that somehow blow up into fireballs — are utilized.

The only good part of all this is that one of the soldiers who gets bitten decides to off himself by walking into a set of spinning helicopter blades. Zombie aficionados will recognize this as a homage to the way Dawn of the Dead was originally supposed to end.

In the ensuing chaos, the group makes it to a parking garage. They then bravely decide to leave their children, Alicia and Chris, alone and unarmed to watch the car while everyone else goes inside to find the others.

You can see where this is going, right?

Sharp Dressed Man

Smoother Talker, AKA Victor Strand, has tied his necktie (?) and is patiently waiting for the crap to hit the fan. Just when it does, he notices that his key his missing… which Nick took… which I guess proves he’s resourceful or something?

Instead of backhanding Gilbert Grape across the face (like he totally should have), Strand smiles, takes the key, and unlocks their cage. He also ignores the others begging for help while explaining to Nick that he has a safe place for them to go. As they leave the holding pens, he mentions needing to get to Abigail, which I hope everyone realized was a place/thing and not a person.

Later on, they find the same soldier who took Strand’s cufflinks in exchange for….uh…killing Doug I think? Anyway, he takes them back along with the soldier’s gun while uttering some cheesy line about letting him keep the watch.

But Strand’s cockiness is short-lived. He and Nick get cornered behind a locked door, leading us to the first glorious moment of this horrible group of people getting killed…

…until Travis and Co. just happen to show up. Ugh. Seriously? Thankfully, they can’t get the door open, so Nick and Strand are still going to die…

…until Liza just happens to show up a few seconds later with a key that opens the door and YOU’VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!

But then, after escaping that horde of walkers, they all get trapped inside a kitchen. Surely at least one member from this inept and completely unlikable group is going to bite the dust here, right?

Nope. They all manage to survive that, too.

The ONLY good part about all this was the look on Daniel Salazar’s face when Liza told him that Griselda was dead. That’s right, bud, you just singlehandedly kicked started the second phase of the apocalypse for a dead woman.

Clocking Chris

Back in the parking garage, Chris and Alicia start to argue about something. Then they hear a sound and get in the car (probably to make out). Then a group of clichés disguised as post-apocalyptic soldiers show up and steal their car. Before they leave, one of the soldiers puts his hands on Alicia. Chris responds by showing more balls than his father has and coming to her defense. This results in him getting punched and knocked out.

Later, the group comes back to find Chris sporting a shiner, Alicia (thankfully) unharmed, and their car gone. Considering that Travis and Co. left two children alone in a hot combat zone, they should be thankful that’s all that happened. But there was still one more surprise awaiting the group in the parking garage.

Remember Andy? Well, it appears that he might be an even better tracker than Daryl. Despite not having any transportation or clue about Daniel’s plan, he somehow tracked his former captor all the way to the exact part of the parking garage where they parked.

A stand off ensues. Andy points the gun and Daniel. Travis begs him not to shoot. Andy points the gun at Ofelia (?). Andy shoots Ofelia (??). Travis finds his inner Rick Grimes, hulks out, and beats the crap out of Andy.

Road Trip

As the sun rises, Ofelia finds a bunch of burned and partially buried bodies and starts to cry, because clearly that’s not as traumatic as anything they’ve seen so far.

Later, the group caravans down to Mr. Strand’s place on the coast, which turns out to be a condominium straight out of GTA. Like, seriously, this place is amazing—it even has a fully stocked pantry and a generator…which of course means they can’t stay there. Strand mumbles some stupid quote about “embracing the madness” that only teenagers will think is deep, then points to a yacht floating off the coast. A yacht named Abigail. A yacht that really needs a better anchor system and/or a dock.

Meanwhile, Ofelia looks like she’s going to be okay. Liza tells Daniel how to care for her and treat the bullet wound. The she tells Chris how much she loves him and wanders off along.

You can see where this is going, right?

Maddie follows Liza (?). Liza reveals to her that she was bitten. Liza asks Maddie to shoot her. Maddie is about to do it when Travis walks in on them. Maddie shoots Liza. Chris and Alicia (who were eating popsicles and laughing) run over to where they heard the gunshot. Chris finds him mom dead (and shot by his dad’s girlfriend. I’m sure that won’t cause any resentment issues). Travis freaks out and falls down by the beach. Maddie hugs him.

The camera pans out. I start to get excited. Here comes the part where a zombie horde just overruns the place and kills them all. It has to be.

The camera pans out some more.

No zombies.

The camera pans over to the left and begins zooming out to sea.

Underwater zombies?

The camera keeps rushing towards Asia.

The show fades to black.

Is It Good?

Are. You. Freaking. KIDDING ME?!

It’s bad enough that this show ended on a ‘Kill Your Infected Loved One’ scene, which is one of the genre’s most tired and worn out plot devices. It’s actually kind of fitting in a way, though, since the show was basically built on predictable and/or stupid narrative decisions.

But Liza is the only death from this terrible group of people that we get? Are you telling me that Dale, Herschel, T-Dog, Bob, Kate, Beth, and Tyrese can die, but this collection of bumbling douche nozzles gets to live? C’mon! We, the audience, have earned those deaths! Liza wasn’t anywhere near enough. In fact, she may have been one of the only characters I was okay with surviving (along with Mr. Strand just to see how loony he gets).

And while them surviving was bad enough, how they survived was even worse.

• A terrible plan involving the accelerated end of humanity.
• A convenient three-part meet up.
• A smooth talking rich guy who decides to keep Nick alive for his magical heroin addict powers (which never came in handy except to steal the key from him, by the way)…and who just happens to have a fortress/mansion they can go to.

And what was up with that last shot. Was the long pan out supposed to be Liza’s spirit leaving, or did the writers/producers really feel the ending was so profound that it would look beautiful rather than completely confusing and unnecessary?

This show isn’t just terrible. It’s tUrrible. And now, thankfully, its first season is over. Maybe AMC won’t go through with the second season. If they do, I’m begging David Brooke do the reviews for it, instead. I can’t take one more episode of this, let alone six…or maybe even more.

Sleep well, Rick Grimes. You definitely don’t want to be awake for any of this.