Spoilers Fear the Walking Dead - Season 6

It’s at an 8.3 so it‘s not that bad and I wonder how many of those early bad reviews are people who actually watch it. Anyway, I find FTWD will always get people giving it bad reviews at this point no matter how good it is. For example, the FTWD subreddit seems to hate everything after Nick and Madison were killed off, though a bunch of the posters there are coming around to liking the show again in season 6.

If you watch it for the walkers, then maybe you won’t like tomorrow’s episode. I personally loved it.

 

That is some thing to consider; social media overflows with people who hate production, but claim they do not watch the productions at all.

At this point, I do not know who would watch strictly for walkers. Its great when the writers invent some new setpiece for the walkers to be a threat, but you cannot have 50+ minutes of that.

 

Yeah, the walkers are literally just set pieces. While it is fun to sometimes see the unique new walkers they can come up with, watching the show strictly for the walkers makes about as much sense as watching Star Trek strictly for the spaceships.

 

Haven't had time to post.... but VERY sad about Dorie dying... he was a huge reason i have liked the new Fear.

I saw somewhere that this death will have season long repurcussions. I hope so (beyond June).

I strongly disagree with @TREK_GOD_1 -- Dorie was very much needed in this new world, to keep up becoming Virginia and Dakota. (and become Carolina?) . He seemed simle, but was really deep.

Was this the first episode that Morgan called John his best friend? AMong the new cost, definitely the most logical. But not sure if they ever talked quite like that. But it was powerful what Morgan said, and i think had actually brought JOhn AWAY from suicide, and was giving him hope, but then...

And not only what is it with Fear having homicidal kids, but what is it with TWD that once a good guy finds out a horrible truth, they blurt it out immediately in front of the culprit, who promptly kills them?

Did Carol ever tell Morgan about "look at the flowers"? I don't see Daokta getting redemption. We already have 1 child on the show; i don't see them keeping another (though Daokta must be 16, if she was tall enough to drive a car pre-apocalypse).

Look forward to tonight

 

Dorie's arc was that he felt--as he expressed in the episode--that he was not fit for the world. He wanted to either live in some honorable realm with June (which he knew did not exist), or live in isolation, because he could not fit in anywhere else. He was the opposite of Morgan, who has flip-flopped with his philosophies over the past few years on TWD and FTWD, so he's been more flexible to the various situations he's encountered, but Dorie was trying to hold one line of belief against the Virginias of the world, which was not working. He knew where there was one Virginia, there would be more, and he would still be incapable of living with / fitting in with that.

I think so.

A WD trope, and now that TWD will end next season, and FTWD might last another year or two, I cannot see the showrunners changing that pattern you pointed out.

Actually, I don't think she ever fully explained that to anyone; during TWD S5 (as Carol and Daryl were searching for Beth), Daryl said something to the effect that he knows something happened with the girls, but at that time, it was clear she did not go into detail. The only other person who knew the full story was Tyrese, and he did not last much longer.

Ehhh...I would like to agree, hoping she emotional weight of a grieving widow would come down on Dakota / sending her back to Virginia, but I just get the impression that the showrunners want Dakota to unrealistically flip a switch and become everyone's favorite.

 

Since they're pretty quick to kill anybody off, it might not mean a whole lot, but it is worth keeping in mind that Zoe Colleti, who plays Dakota, is a regular, but Colby Minfie, who plays Virgian is not. This could mean that they have bigger plans for Dakota beyond the conflict with her sister.
Just in case anyone doesn't watch the credits and isn't aware of who the current regulars are, here they are.
Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alycia Clarke
Ruben Blades as Daniel Salazar
Danay Garcia as Luciana Galvez
Maggie Grace as Althea "Al" Szewczyk-Przygocki
Garret Dillahunt as John Dorie was a regular until at least tonight's episode.
Lennie James as Morgan Jones
Jenna Elfman as June Dorie
Alexa Nisenson as Charlie
Karen David as Grace
Austin Amelio as Dwight
Mo Collins as Sarah Rabinowitz
Colby Holman as Wes
Zoe Colleti as Dakota
Christine Evangelist as Sherry

 

Credit billing often has to do with actors wishes, or rather the wishes of their agent. In this case. Zoe Colletti/her agent requested she have main cast credit billing while Colby Minifie/her agent did not.

 

OK, maybe it's not a sign of anything then.

 

Fear the Walking Dead
Season 6 / Episode 9 - "Things Left to Do"

Morgan, Virginia and the Gang: I loved the way he picked apart Virginia's entire operation and lies with a few words--and how quickly Virginia's air of dominance fell apart--to a point. With Grace and Daniel held hostage, and Morgan forced to protect Virginia, she managed to play one, last card...

Virginia reveals that Dakota is her daughter--born when the despot was young and dealing with "shamed" parents. Obviously, she was shocked by Dakota's handwritten note to Morgan, but it is still unclear why Dakota wanted her own mother dead...and it certainly does not absolve Dakota of responsibility in the murder of Dorie.

The best scene of the episode was Morgan struggling with executing Virginia, but I feel sparing her was a rinse-and-repeat of Rick saving Negan's life, both inspired by the hope of another.

Dakota / June: Ahh...so June knew Dakota murdered Dorie. The look on her face should have sent chills up Virginia's spine, and the feeling would have been justified, since June was the one to kill Virginia. SEE NOTES.

Strand: At long last, he stepped up when the "big show" (as Virginia described it) arrived, but he--a an who has not really suffered at Virginia's hands--is all about killing her. That is poor storytelling and has Strand becoming an unnecessary problem. I did enjoy the brief interaction between Strand and Alicia; earlier this season, the showrunners managed to remember that they are among only three of the original characters left on the show, so having them still have some connection is something that requires more attention.

Sherry: Sherry is so PTSD-rattled (by Negan) that she's just blinded by murderous rage against Virginia (although she cringed when she thought Morgan was going to behead Virginia); she's more of an annoyance than anything else, and I cannot see any reunion with Dwight being pleasant.

Luciana: She lives! ..but still has little to do.

Grace: Since we know more conflicts are coming, I do not want to see Grace and her child survive Virginia, only to end up killed off by the next Big Bad.

NOTES:
Although June left the settlement, there has to be a coming conflict between June and Dakota--there's no way the showrunners can have June just convince her self that Dakota's behavior was all Virginia's fault. Dakota is old enough to be completely aware of her decisions, and murder is one she's never had a problem with to any degree. For now, the Dakota matter is as I suspected, the showrunners are giving her a free pass.

Oh, and playing the Western sting to accompany June suddenly becoming Dorie 2.0 was corny.

And so ends actress Colby Minifie's run as Virginia; she made the character her own and a very believable villain.

GRADE: A.

 

Enjoyable episode that actually genuinely had me guessing a few times. It was fun having Morgan and Virginia on the run together, having that open to the two of them having personal interactions that that there normally shouldn't be between them. And damn, by the end of this episode the show's status quo is quite sufficiently shaken up to the point it sort of feels like they'll be launching a whole new show. Well, at the very least, it definitely feel like one particular chapter has ended and we'll be beginning a new one next week. And did they just set Strand up to be the new villain? I mean, he's basically in charge of all the Rangers now, isn't he? And since he's rejecting Morgan's ideals and refusing to live inside the dam paradise with everyone else, but is still remaining in the show's main cast, they're doing something with him, presumably.

If anything, I did think Virginia's defeat came around a bit too easily. This maybe more a flaw with the prior episodes which didn't really indicate any real amount of unrest among the Rangers, or that Virginia had anything less than their total loyalty. Maybe if they had showed some dissent among the ranks earlier on, I could buy they'd all turn on her based on Morgan's speech, since I assume the intent is many of them had doubts and suspicions about her which Morgan just confirmed. But as presented, it just looks like the guy they've been believing to be the villain and up to no good just shows up and tells them their leader is a fraud and they take him at face value.

 

From what Strand said before him and the Rangers turned on Virginia, I got the impression that he had already been working to turn them against her, and Morgan's speech gave him the opportunity finally pull the trigger.
Colbie Minfie and Zoe Colleti really knocked it out of the park in their big scene together.
Virginia going on the run with Morgan was a nice opportunity to explore the character a bit more. The big reveal she was Dakota's mother was a surprise.
I was trying to figure out if they were trying to hint that Dakota was the product of rape. The way she talked about how Dakota came into the world, and her parents not protecting her kind of gave me that impression.
Very curious where they are headed with Strand, it looks like they're setting him up to be a bad guy or at least no longer any ally of Morgan and Co.
June killing Virginia and walking away was a surprise. I'm curious where they are going to take her now, since her relationship with Dorie had been a pretty big part of her arc for a while.
EDIT: EW.com has posted a post episode interview with Fear's showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg. They talk a bit about what lead to some of last night's events, Strand turning on Virgian, and what's coming up in the back half of the season. It definitely sounds like there will a bit of hostility between Morgan's people, Strand and the Rangers, and Sherry's group. But I'm thinking the introduction of the The End Is The Beginning people and John Glover's character, will probably force them to come together. You don't set up this kind of hostility between groups, without forcing them to all work together at some point.

 

Which reminds me, there were a few vague references this week to a coming threat that Virginia was apparently preparing for. Was that just a sort of "be vigilant at all times" thing or does she actually know of something stirring over the horizon like the The End Is The Beginning people or perhaps even the CRM?

 

I had assumed that was all set up for The End is The Beginning/John Glover people.

 

Fear the Walking Dead
Season 6 / Episode 10 - "Handle with Care"

Daniel: "you could see why I was hopeful...then it all changed." The opening certainly ended with a eye-opener, that being Daniel locked in a cell.

The second he recalled storing all weapons, I thought the harmony he expressed in the framing story was going south. All of the group members (A and B characters) were at each others' throats, all accusing each other of using the dynamite to cause a distraction (to steal the guns) and draw a crowd of walkers to the unarmed group, but that would still require the culprit to expose himself as the thief once the walkers overrun the sanctuary, so Daniel's suspicion seemed odd from the start. That said, the story was good in painting characters as so shady that any one of them could have been guilty.

This was an interesting study of Daniel falling apart, coupled with his history of suspicious behavior leading him to dream up phantom thefts he was responsible for, blaming Strand, and claiming he told Grace to go to a location that may have led to her (and Charlie's) death. We were meant to believe he's still putting on an act, or perhaps suffering from the early onset of Alzheimer's. June believed its psychosomatic, and in a good callback to season two's "Shiva" (S2, E7), Daniel himself remembers how he set Celia's cellar on fire, while hallucinating the image of his wife--and his victims, so there's precedent for his current breakdown.

Strand: It did not take long for Daniel to suspect Strand of stealing the weapons, and while Strand has been self-serving on several occasions, there were enough hostile personalities among them to not think of Strand as suspect #1, despite the fact he held on to his own gun.

The most positive outcome of the episode was Strand--Daniel's eternal suspect--to offer to care for him...more for the late Ofelia than Daniel himself. Despite the agreement for the groups to work together, Strand has clearly had enough of Morgan, or his demands, not just about Daniel, but in general.

Grace: I was hoping her issues was not teasing a bad end, but she's threatened so often (by Virginia on a couple of occasions, and by Daniel sending her to a potentially dangerous shack), that it makes me feel the showrunners are stringing the audience along with "will we / won't we" teases, only to catch viewers off guard by finally killing her off in the near future.

NOTES:
Next week is the beginning of a new threat (or promise) as the heroes finally run into the "End is the Beginning" group.

GRADE: A.

 

This was a really good, deep character study for Daniel.
Doing it from his perspective was a nice way to make the audience share in his confusion when it turned out he was remembering things wrong and not remembering doing them.
They did a pretty good job of making it seem like anyone could have done it, and making the reveal that it was Daniel a real surprise.
I wonder if we're going to have some episodes where we don't see members of certain groups, or if they're continue to find reasons for all of the groups to have get together every episode.
It was nice to see Skid Mark again.

 

They do seem to be returning to status quo after potentially shaking things up last week. Strand possibly set up as the new villain? Well, now he's back to being essentially an ally, with Daniel being untrustworthy of him as always. June possibly taking a dark turn after killing Virginia and walking away from the dam paradise? Well, she apparently still returns to make medical related visits.

Otherwise, I did like the character work done with Daniel as recent events have taken a psychological toll on him and he's having memory blackouts and unknowingly doing things and giving faulty instructions to people. Hopefully with Strand apparently deciding to look after him at Lawton the two of them can finally work past their endless issues with each other.

We get some vague hints about the Beginning is the End people and I assume we're going to be learning who and what they are sometime soon.

 

Next week, going by the promo and clip.
Clip

promo

 

Saw this weekend’s new episode and can’t wait to discuss with all of you. It’s a big one. This season is one of the best in all of TWD

 

Do you have the AMC subscription service?

 

I apologize if I violate some site rules by saying this: I have an NAS that has Sonarr running on it that pulls episodes of tv shows automatically. So when it’s up on the AMC subscription service, someone makes it available, and it downloads the episode. Kind of like torrents but not torrents. Then I watch everything using an app called Plex.