Fear the Walking Dead Review: Blood in the Streets (Season 2 Episode 4)

Fear the Walking Dead tries something new in this week’s episode, “Blood in the Streets,” and it certainly serves as a potential turning point moving forward with this season.

Whether or not it helps to create an interesting conflict in a show that has, thus far, been consistently dull remains to be seen.

But let’s just pretend we have faith in this show for now and give credit where credit is due: we have actual, real plot movement this week. And development. And the story has evolved and expanded beyond this small group of boring, semi-strangers being trapped on a boat together (thank God).

As usual, however, before we delve in to the rest of the episode, we have to address what simply is not working:

They’re still pushing this, “Cover yourself in their blood to blend in,” thing with Nick, because Nick has become the Abilgail‘s undercover walker expert, apparently.

Honestly, it’s corny and becoming overused already — which, again, is likely due, in part, to the fact that we’ve witnessed this gory tactic on The Walking Dead multiple times before. It has completely lost all shock value, so, they sooner they drop this, the better.

Meanwhile, back on the boat, we finally meet Jack face-to-face and, as predicted, he and his group are bad news for our heroes (this is something we all saw coming from the moment poor, naive Alicia started talking to Jack on the radio) but good news for us, because something interesting has finally happened, and we may have just met this season’s Big Bad!

What’s even better is that he, technically, is only bad from the perspective of those on the Abigail. Good and evil is not nearly as black and white as fiction often makes it seem and it’s always exciting to see “villains” on screen who aren’t clearly and obviously bad people.

Here’s hoping the explore this grey area more with Connor and his rag tag team of post-apocalyptic pirates.

Thanks to the arrival of Connor and his crew, the main group is now divided both literally and in terms of their priorities moving forward. Now, they have the debate of whether or not they continue to Strand’s safe house or go after Travis and Alicia.

In a season (well, series) that has lacked any real, interesting plot direction, this could very well prove to be a blessing — a cure for the bland, dull atmosphere that has plagued this show.

We need to see these people go to war, we need to see them with a real purpose. We need to see them become corrupt by this world. We need to watch them fall from grace. Travis can’t continue to be this voice of reason, of righteousness, and Madison needs to become more than the protective Mother figure, Ophelia just needs to do something, et cetera.

We also get some intriguing insight in to the mysterious Captain of the Abigail this week and, first and foremost, kudos has to be given to Fear for creating a strong, complex queer character whilst ensuring that Strand’s defining trait is not his sexuality.

The focus of these flashbacks, in fact, is more on showing viewers Strand’s determination to survive and persevere, even when things seem to be at their worst. These insights in to his past show us that he is the sort of man who will do whatever it takes to rebuild from nothing — to climb and fight his way back up from rock bottom.

The zombie apocalypse is, without a doubt, rock bottom, and we now have a better insight in to why and how Strand is so well equipped, mentally, to deal with such a disastrous situation. He’s simply used to fighting to survive, in one way or another.

All in all, this week’s episode was the first to provide a glimmer of hope for the rest of the season — hope that, perhaps, the show’s intensity might be turned up a few notches in the weeks to come.

What did you think of “Blood in the Streets?” Let me know in the comments below!

Reviewer Rating:

User Rating:

 

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays 9/8 on AMC.