Fear the Walking Dead Season 4 discussion and spoilers.

So i know the episode is still airing...but I am using Xfinity to take some breaks.

OK..starting with Forrest Gump..not sure if it was effective...

but starting to to like the new characters.

But i can't believe they STILL dropped the Helipad at the Heapsters home! Seemed like a logical way to get MOrgan out west. But instead, we're pushing Fear past the TWD timeline.

So we're stuck with Madison and her family the whole time? Oy...

 

I thought the cross over was actually well done. Knowing where Morgan’s head was, it felt organic. Liked the new cast adds. Interested in finding out where the story goes.

Q2

 

I like Fear but Morgan is tiring... meh. Enjoyed the gunslinger and Elle, is it?

 

Ally...Alison.

I will look forward to Morgan taking down Nick.

I was also hoping for more diversity...and wondering what has happened in the past couple of years.

If this lasts until season. 5 I hope they bring past some past characters

 

It felt a lot more like the pilot of a new Morgan-centric spin-off than a continuation of Fear the Walking Dead.

 

I checked out this episode after not watching the last four episodes of season three out of pure boredom and was pleasantly surprised. I like Garret Dillahunt as John Dorie and Maggie Grace was cute as a button as Althea. Both are welcome additions and are infinitely more likeable than Madison Clark and Nick. Morgan was a bit of a buzzkill, still in his mopey stage, but hopefully he'll come out of that soon.

Watching this episode, I wondered why the producers of The Walking Dead decide to make such a boring show. Just the idea of following a gunslinger, a martial arts guy and a badass journalist during a zombie apocalypse has such great potential for entertaining stories.

I'm still done with The Walking Dead, but I'll continue watching this season of Fear the Walking Dead (at least until Scott Gimple fucks it up and makes it dull as dishwater, too)

 

Oh, that will be the gift that keeps on giving.

Well, the diversity will depend on the location, as this series tends to populate the cast based on in-story region.

That is a great point--but unlike--for example--Picard guest starring in the Deep Space Nine pilot (where you knew it was temporary), the Morgan situation is what happens anytime one of the major characters from the parent show goes to another on (what we assume will be) a permanent basis. Now, the showrunners' hands are tied, as they cannot just use him for ratings, then sideline him in order to return the focus on the regulars. Plus, they cannot have a character as experienced in battle/life as Morgan placed in a subordinate position, unless he spends the season back to his "I'm not fighting" mode from season 6 and 7.

 

They're all slow learners. They go from trap, to ambush, to... another trap!

 

I'd been wanting to get back into this after falling behind back in Season 1, so after reading a recap on IGN and seeing this season was going to be doing a time jump I decided to jump in.
I enjoyed the episode, Morgan is one of my favorite TWD characters, so I really liked the focus on him and John and Ally were pretty cool to.
I look forward to seeing the main cast next week.

 

Can we have another spin-off a few seasons from now, Tank Girl and Gunslinger.

 

Watched both TWD finale and FTWD premiere back to back while they were broadcast, after checking out of both shows at the end of season 7 and season 2 respectively. My reaction to TWD was, "Okay, this should have been the finale for season 7, I guess I'll tune in next season at least for a bit," and was amused that nothing about where the story had gone was that confusing. I really didn't feel as if I had missed an entire season, just maybe an episode or two. It was whatever. I was really looking forward to seeing Fear, though, because I loved what they were trying to do seasons 1 and 2, but most of the show was just so boring in between moments of brilliance.

Seeing Fear right after TWD really highlighted how much better I think Fear can be compared to TWD. Everything was better for me, the cinematography, the acting, the directing, the characters, the dialogue, the pacing, the action, the special effects, the story...all of it! And it was such a quiet and subdued story but was entertaining for me the whole way through, by grace of the direction and performances. This was very different from how boring TWD was getting before I quit. Sometimes it feels like TWD is going out of its way to be boring and frustratingly uninteresting.

I think if I had watched all of S8 I would be in the camp that Morgan is boring, since I'm assuming his character 'transformation' from peace lover to cold blooded killer to recluse was heavy handed. He was delightful to watch here without that baggage. And yeah, it did feel like a Morgan spinoff premiere rather than a continuation of Fear, but I was okay with that. The introduction of a new major player should be a major event, and letting us get to know just how reclusive Morgan is at this moment should inform his character being brought onto a show that has a unified family as the core premise (I'm assuming this is still true about Fear?). I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with him and the family. I don't mind him being a semi-focus of the season, because his intro was good. It was like having Worf on DS9. Not only that, but his cowboy and journalist "friends" are well written, well acted characters, with a lot of charm. So much to like. I hate pretty much every character on TWD so this was a nice change.

In fact, I liked the episode so much that I decided to go back and watch season 3. Watched that first episode of S3 last night, and wow! What a great episode, too! Does anyone have any strong feelings about season 3? Is it worth the watch? I'd like to know what was going on up until the time jump. Time jumps can either be great to move the story along (Voyager books) or disasters (DS9 books). That introductory episode was just so gritty and uncomfortable but compelling in a way I hadn't felt since early episodes of TWD, but for all different reasons. The characters have such a real quality to them in their desperation and rage, compared to how comic booky TWD characters are (yes, I understand the irony of that statement). Is season 3 like season 1 and 2 where we get action for an episode and then go back to really boring before Madison burns down the town? (This is possibly my favorite aspect of Fear, that this family just seems to hilariously bring casual destruction wherever they go, usually by accident.)

 

^I checked out for the last four or five episodes of Season Three. The ranch storyline could have been interesting, but it ended up being super boring and predictable. The only reason I tuned in for the Season Four premiere was because I'm a fan of Garret Dillahunt and Maggie Grace and wanted to see what the new showrunners brought. I was pretty impressed, but I'm being cautious, because I know that behind the scenes, Gimple is just waiting to fuck this show up too.

 

I didn't realize Aly was Maggie Grace until about 10 or 15 after they introduced her. I've only seen her with long blonde hair, so the short dark hair really threw me off.

 

I found everything had a very washed out look to it. Probably intentional, to set mood, but I'm not really a fan of the look, especially in such a dark setting anyway. Someone who walked by while I had the show on actually asked "this show is filmed in black and white?"

True to a point, I don't think the Fear cast should have been reduced to cameos in the heavily promoted crossover event that served as the premiere of their own show. Hell, Madison, Fear's credited lead doesn't even appear in the episode.

It has entertainment value, though the problem for me is by the mid-season point I was feeling a lot more sympathetic towards the people the Clarkes were fighting rather than the Clarkes themselves.

Oh, don't worry. That certainly continues to happen throughout the third season.

 

I haven't watched FTWD since The Great DVR Loss of 2016, during FTWDs Season 2B where I lost my saved FTWD episodes due to a DVR malfunction and needing it replaced. I've not watched anything since Season 2's break and at that point I was tepid on the show and never actively went back into it. From what I heard 2B onwards the show picked up quite a bit, particularly with this past season (3.)

I watched the first segments of the Season 4 premiere this past week, up to the first hard commercial break, to see Morgan crossing over and was interested in what was happening, the new character (Dorie) and from stuff I've seen Maggie Grace makes for a great new character too. (I didn't care for her much on Lost, but this character of hers I like and like the way she looks as well.)

This episode is still on my DVR, I've not yet watched it, though I've watched recap/reviews of it and looks to be a good episode and, I suspect, the rest of the season will be dealing with the time-jump to some degree. So, I'll need to watch this and get back into FTWD if Morgan and the new characters can keep me interested (as well as wherever they bring the regular characters.) I'll read some recaps or something to see what happened in the season and a half I missed.

 

This was the highest rated episode since season 1. Morgan effect.

 

That and riding out the parent show/regular watchers of the Talking Dead (which vot preempted by Fear)...we shall see next week. Certainly a few will tune in to see Morgan knock down Nick

 

I haven't really watched FTWD since the end of season 2 because I really disliked a majority of the characters. I watched this premiere S4 episode and wondered what I missed because I liked the 'newscaster' and thought she'd been introduced in S# or something. Then get to the end of the episode and find out (surprise) she's a new charter too. (I already knew the Cowboy in the truck was either new, or was going to be a one off casualty at some point.

But, the thing is: This episode made me want to watch more because I liked these new characters, along with Morgan (although he sure got cross country from Atlanta to Texas pretty damn fast - and with a minimum of issues UNTIL he hit Texas ) and honestly; I could care less if Nick or his b*tch of a mother (nothing against the actress I just really hate the character she plays) are back on the show or not. (but that's me).

 

You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to that.

 

Fear the Walking Dead--
"Another Day in the Diamond"

Madison: Okay, jumping down into the oil tank, not knowing how far the drop was BS; she could have ended up with broken legs, fallen right in the center of the clawing walkers, or hit her head and drowned...any number of things. In a world of limited resources, no one would take that chance all for the sake of reaching out to a stranger. That kind of unbelievable "hero" stunt is right down there with the infamous Daryl/Carol van drop from TWD (season five).

Mel and his group: So...like the Saviors, this group demands the possessions of all they come across. Obviously, they're the reason the heroes were so desperate and disheveled when running into Morgan, John and Althea in the season premiere.

Charlie aka Enid 2.0: As in the case of Enid in her early TWD episodes, here's another young girl not too trusting and unwilling to talk about her past, but in flipping the early Enid theories (that she was one of the Wolves or a Savior spy), this one was a plant.

Luciana: Reaching out to Nick, but he seems closed off to her, but I think his reasons are not exclusively tied to the season three explosion.

Nick: Aw, crap. We have to wait until episode three to see Morgan beat on Nick.

NOTES: So, they're living in a baseball stadium in Texas. I guess that makes Morgan's trip from Virginia a bit easier to buy.

The start of this season bears some similarities to TWD season 4, where the group has settled in a stable location, right down to growing their own food. Like TWD's fourth season, some characters feel at home, while one has some sort of issue--only instead of Michonne not hanging around the prison (not just because of her search for the Governor), you have the reverse with Nick not wanting to leave the settlement. As I believed, a threat will send the group running in all directions, only it begins early instead being saved for the mid-season finale.