Instead of picking up the pace after last week’s cliffhanger, Fear the Walking Dead delivered another contemplative character piece this week, but with a thankfully higher level of success than the mediocre season premiere.
‘We All Fall Down’ is still recognisably cut from the same cloth as last week’s episode and this is far from genuinely great drama, but it’s a pretty solid instalment on the whole that has a much clearer idea of what it wants to accomplish from the get-go, and sets out a coherent and intriguing map for season two going forward in a way that last week’s premiere failed to do.
The core of ‘We All Fall Down’ is our group’s encounter with a survivalist family camped out on an island away from civilisation. The family’s presence means that there are finally some original and differing perspectives on the apocalypse and what it means for humanity in play here than normal, allowing for these familiar viewpoints to be utilised in compelling ways.
This particularly benefits Travis and Madison whose characterisation is lent clarity and sharpness by the presence of outside characters from which points of comparison can be drawn – they can feel a little inert when they’re just reiterating the same stuff to characters whose viewpoints have already been made clear, but here they’re actually somewhat compelling to watch as their interactions with the family are making a thematic point that’s actually fresh and original for this show.
The theme of giving into the apocalyptic order versus keeping up hope is a good, stable one to focus the episode around, and the survivalist dad’s opinion that the apocalypse is a purely cyclical event – nature’s cleansing and punishment of mankind for their actions – is a fascinatingly fatalistic one that finally sees Fear exploit the ample opportunities for exploring the vastly different ways in which this opaque, deliberately vaguely-sketched cataclysm can be explained.
The Walking Dead shows have the distinct advantages of a zombie apocalypse for which the meaning and exact details are entirely blurry allowing characters’ ideologies to be projected onto this apocalypse as people try and explain away this disaster in a way that lends distinct insight into their personality and beliefs.
That’s absolutely the case here, and as such the survivalist father has far more depth and complexity than a typical guest character because his scenes are so densely laden with insights about how, influenced by confirmation bias, the father has taken this event as a legitimisation of his long-held beliefs and a chance to get his less keen family to follow along with his ideal life.
These are some of the most interesting dramatic concepts that Fear has introduced yet, and a sign that it can at the very least play at being a decent conventional drama.
The ideas at play in ‘We All Fall Down’ are fascinating and show that Fear is able to introduce and explore genuinely interesting thematic ideas specific to this early stage of the zombie apocalypse where hope is still viable, but it’s worth noting that the execution of these ideas is frequently lacking.
As interesting as the ideas may be, a lot of them are left underdeveloped which dulls the impact of scenes that ‘We All Fall Down’ intends to be moving and gut-wrenching. The final scene with the older son as he takes back the younger kid and takes down his zombified mother on the pier is presented as if it’s a shocking gut-punch – and while the great direction and solid acting all around mean that it does pack some impact, it’s not particularly shocking because the survivalist kids are so underdeveloped, either portrayed as simple extensions of the father or just identikit ‘TV children’ who behave like every child in an average drama.
In its final act, ‘We All Fall Down’ pins a lot on characters for which there hasn’t been much build-up and development, and as such the episode goes out with a bit of a whimper as this reviewer simply wasn’t invested enough in these characters to be particularly shocked when something horrible happens to them.
Nonetheless, it’s important to underline that this is a distinct step up that builds upon last week’s shaky foundations and improves upon them while expanding on what did work in the premiere. The key strength of the premiere’s flabby mid-section was the slowly unfurling mystery of Strand, which continued to thicken and complicate in ‘We All Fall Down’.
The hints we’re given this week about his true nature are surprisingly substantial, revealing that his true destination unbeknownst to most of the Abigail crew is Mexico and that he’s in contact with people who want him to come fast – alongside the intriguing implication that the Abigail may not be Strand’s boat at all.
Contrasting to the slow-burn pace of the season so far, the Strand mystery is quickly deepening our knowledge of this mystery man’s ulterior motive and escalating week-on-week in a way that’s satisfyingly incremental yet streamlined, which ensures that the mystery remains one of the best parts of season two thus far.
If ‘We All Fall Down’ is to be the template for at least the first half of this season, then the season’s on more solid ground than I suspected last week.
It utilises the show’s unwieldy ensemble in a more intelligent and rewarding way that gives everyone something to do other than simply being dumb to progress the plot, and sets out the interesting concept of the season acting as a long oceanic odyssey in which the group continues to meet survivors on their way and develop their understanding of this new world post-apocalypse as their captain works towards a nefarious end goal in secret.
Fear can only be merely a good drama at its very best and it’s wasting a lot of potential with inconsistent execution and characterisation, but with ‘We All Fall Down’, it’s given this reviewer a lot more reason to stay on board and keep faith – for the time being, Fear has corrected its course.
Aired at 9pm on Monday 18 April 2016 on AMC UK.
> Buy the Season 1 box set on Amazon.
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