I still feel the need to get my summaries up for every episode, even though at this current date, we are two episodes into the second season, and episode nine will be aired later tonight. I'm currently seeing some parallels with the writing in The Walking Dead, where we have an "easing" into the season, the episodes get very intense...I'll predict a slowish second-to-last episode for the season, with a big shebbang for the finale.
We also know, now, that season three has been approved, and they will start working on it soon. Few things to note is that there is no "comic" to base these characters off, so unlike TWD, we know that certain characters have a fate of death, whereas others like Daryl Dixon, can be killed off at any time because he doesn't exist in the comic. In Fear, however, I feel as though the writers are preparing us for the main focal characters to be in for the long haul. We see that a character was killed off in the first season who was a focal character, but someone expendable. I'm seeing that happening that only a few characters should be considered offable.
I feel though I need to summarize the episodes though, just to keep better track not just for myself, but also in my note taking during the shows, I see parallels that I get very excited to talk about in that episode. If that makes sense.
But going back to the third episode of the series. We were introduced to the Salazar family -- Ruben Blades' Daniel who is a barber, his wife Griselda and daughter Ofelia. Travis and his ex-wife Liza and son Chris, who had witnessed some of the police actions and fear gripping the city. There was a lot unknown. Travis had talked his way into taking shelter at the shop. Daniel reluctantly agrees. It's tough for me to talk about Daniel in this context, knowing what I know about him now, but also from the perspective that we didn't know much about him.
Travis, at this point, still believed in a pecking order, a natural order of protection and authority. However, after what he witnessed with his ex and their son, it was easy to acknowledge it was all crumbling down, and quickly. He reassures Salazar, though, that they would leave once law enforcement would handle everything. It's increasingly clear, though, that won't happen.
The store next door catches fire, and the heat is seeping into Salazar's barber shop. They decide as a group to leave, but Salazar tells Travis that they will run in different directions. Yet, this is how we start to see the formation of "tribes," like we see in TWD (Rick and Daryl and Carol and all those folks who manage to regroup, etc). If we were to see the Salazars and Manawas and Clarks together in the middle of the apocalypse, I'm sure we'd wonder how the hell they all got together.
In this case, while running together in the middle of the riots, Griselda gets caught, Travis stays behind to rescue her, and they end up in his truck, trying to find a hospital to help Gridelda, who was injured.
In the previous episode, Travis tries to convince Maddie to "go east," and they will somehow meet them all together with his ex wife and son. She stays firm, says they will stay (also, we have to remember her drug addicted son had a relapse and was in the hospital a few days before...running probably isn't the best idea for her at this time anyway). Cognitive dissonance is there as she takes out a board game to play with Nick and Alicia.
We are hearing some of the fallout of the outside. The radio had announced that FAA has grounded all flights (note: in the middle of all this, the Fear the Walking Dead substory of Flight 462 is having their outbreak on the plane). Meanwhile, hospitals are being overrun. We don't see it, but we are left to imagine that people who are hospitalized with "the virus" or "the sickness" are dying, turning, and creating its own chaos there. However, Griselda needs medical attention, and our new tribe isn't able to get it.
Travis wants to see if he can help Daniel's family, in getting Griselda the help she needs and to keep their family together. Daniel says, "Why, so we can stop keeping score?" To which Travis responds, "I didn't start."
This was something I thought was telling, and could potentially be a theme in this show. Keeping score in a civilized society is easy. I did X, so you do Y for me. In this new world order, keeping score is literally a matter of life or death. Daniel seems oddly cold and prepared for it though (and by far, Ruben Blades is an amazing actor - I am so happy he is on this show).
Back at the ranch (literally, Maddie and Travis have a ranch style home), the Clarks notice a dog in the backyard, a German Shepherd who is covered in blood. The family, while they played Monopoly, carnage is occurring right in their backyard, literally. They realize staying still isn't the best idea either, they are sitting ducks. They decide to check on their neighbors, whom they know own firearms. These neighbors are Susan and Patrick.
Things get a little chaotic because Travis arrives with his family plus the Salazars (who obviously has not been involved in their lives until this point). In their haste, the Clarks learn a very valuable lesson: don't leave your freaking back door open in the middle of a flippin zombie apocalypse. The dog who had warned them of the carnage outside is now dog chow for an infected person. I remember watching that scene, being so pissed off that they would do something so simply idiotic.
Meanwhile, Alicia escapes unnoticed back to Susan and Patrick's home, to get more ammo, as its clear they will need to stock up. However, this time she notices something they didn't at first: someone had been there all along, and it was Susan...who is now one of the infected.
She escapes and tries to scale the back fence and gets caught by infected Susan. Dealing with their own walker at hand, Salazar coldly kills the infected with the gun.
Alicia is able to scale the fence with the help of Chris, whom she injures too. There is a minor scuffle, but it's then Alicia realizes that Matt, her boyfriend, is also one of the infected.
While the rest of the group realizes their neighbor, Susan, is "sick," Nick is the only one who has the realistic answer. "She's not sick; she's dead."
The family is on the fence about leaving or staying. Maddie wants to leave, as does Alicia, seeing no good in staying behind a world that's clearly falling apart. However, Travis is a "fixer," Griselda needs medical help, and if they stay, perhaps riding it out will bear out good results.
I noticed in this episode is that there's still an element of "hope" that each person is holding onto. With the exception of Nick who had his own demons, we find each character had a life prior to the world falling apart, with hopes and dreams that they still hold onto. Liza wants to go to medical school to help people. Ofelia, though more of a tertiary character in this episode, has a quiet determination about her. (I predict she will become a bad ass later). There's still hope that while not a lot is known about the disease, that the authorities will keep things contained and orderly, and Travis is just the guy to hold onto that hope as well.
We also find out with conversations between Liza and Maddie that Maddie's first husband died. (As of episode eight, we don't know how, but we are led to believe it was unexpected). Liza and Maddie agree to work together not as "friends" (there's no love there, haha), but as mothers. Seeing what they've been through early on, they agree that if one of them were to be infected, they'd take care of the other. As Liza says, it would "break Travis" if he had to take her out.
(We also know that was a huge foreshadowing.)
Daniel starts to train Chris on how to use a gun. It's odd how Travis and Daniel didn't exactly intend to get into each others lives, they are now together, for better or for worse, and starting to do survival training. Also, in my opinion, Daniel's steely reserved character seems to best prepared for something like this. So that's good, for the better of the group. We shall see where he leads us later on.
Meanwhile, Susan is still in her garden in the backyard. Apparently, Susan and Patrick were friends of the family, and Maddie is having a tough time reconciling this infected dead person is also the friend she cared about. She intends to "finish her," but Travis talks her out of it. Travis, being the rational and methodical one of the group, still believes that a cure could be found and by killing her off, it gave her no chance. Again, this idea of hope upon hope that something good would come out of this whole thing.
The families decide to get the hell out of dodge and leave town, go "east" as they had planned all along and hope they can find Griselda the help for her injuries which have gotten worse.
However, as they are about to leave the block, Patrick returns, not knowing that his wife is not only infected but dead. Maddie sees him, and starts to shout to him to not go into the backyard. Patrick sees Susan, she lunges towards him...only to have the military sharp shoot her in the head, she falls dead, Patrick is scuttled away, and the families are once again in a holding pattern, kept from leaving.
The military arrives, and says that the groups must be quarantined within city walls. They don't know a lot about the infection, but anyone can have it, and they need to be contained. Everyone and anyone may be exposed.
I see this as a "Mr. Rogers" hope moment. He has a famous saying about "finding the helpers." People helping people are the ones you want to follow. However, as know from TWD and what we are learning from FearTWD, is that there are no rules in this new world order. That the people helping you may have ulterior motives of their own. And that when the people who are supposed to be in charge and have answers don't, they're no better off than you are as a regular guy civilian trying to figure it out yourself.
But Mr. Rogers' hope is kind of thrown to the wayside, as a viewer. You know this is not going to turn out well. So while the family is riding it out, Nick is outside of the house, seeing a commercial airliner jet flying awry. We presume to think this is Flight 462, making its crash landing into LAX or somewhere close enough to it.
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