For five weeks of the show’s running, Fear The Walking Dead faced harsh criticism about slow pacing and actors that do not quite measure up to the quality on their brother counterpart, The Walking Dead. Regardless of what you may think about the show, Fear The Walking Dead put everything together and delivered a whale of a finale. Titled “The Good Man”, episode six of the zombie spectacular began with our protagonists finally packing up and leaving their home to rescue their loved ones from the military compound. With the military decision to blow up the town the next morning, the show tugged at my heartstrings with the family seated around the table having a seemingly normal dinner. Knowing that things will never be the same and innocent people get killed makes a typical hack and slash zombie show go a bit further.
The middle portion of the episode took place at the aforementioned military complex. The plan for the group to recover the other members was to release the zombies being held inside of the arena, causing a distraction to get inside the hospital. Which leads me to my one giant gripe with the finale: why in the world would you go through the trouble of releasing THOUSANDS of zombies to cause a distraction? I realize that the zombie apocalypse likely couldn’t be contained, but wow, this expedited things in a hurry. If the Los Angeles military didn’t lose all these members, who knows what other lives they could have saved in the future. Anyways, the group found their way into the hospital, reuniting with Liza, Dr. Exner, Nick, and Mr. Strand (who was a complete bad ass this entire episode). After nearly becoming zombie bait, the group escaped nearly in piece. While all of this was going on, Travis asked Chris and Alicia to watch their SUV in the parking garage. Unfortunately for them, they encountered a small group of three military men who stole the car from them and beat up Chris in the process. I suppose I have one more really small gripe about this episode: the SUV was their ONLY plan of transportation to escape from the hospital? These military guys don’t have access to any type of tank or vehicle, they are forced to stumble upon a group of teenagers and beat them up? Kinda strange. To wrap up this sequence, the captured Adams appeared out of nowhere and pulled a gun on Daniel, ready to kill him from the torture inflicted on his arm. And in a really random sequence, he shot Ofelia in the arm. Travis then went full-on Hulk and beat the soldier to death. I had the following thought: “Aww, our Travis is FINALLY all grown up.”
Anyways, the final sequence: wow. The group found their way to Strand’s beach house and had a very brief respite from all the carnage. The beautiful scenery and hopeful plan of using Strand’s house boat gave the group some small hope. Liza reveals to Madison that she was bitten back at the compound and we are quickly snapped back to how horrible the world is becoming. She asks Madison to shoot her, and when she is unwilling to do so, asks Travis. After some resistance, Travis gives Liza some much-needed eternal rest from a world that likely would have consumed her. The group runs to find Liza’s body and Travis kneeling in the waves.
This was an incredible episode to wrap up the season. The build up to this point may have been a “slow burn,” but “The Good Man” provided a memorable episode and hope for this show in the future.
