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Fear the Walking Dead "S1E2 So Close, yet So Far" - Review: "Well that certainly escalated quickly"


Fear the Walking Dead "S1E2 So Close, yet So Far" - Review: "Well that certainly e...
8 out of 10

“The first million dollars is always the hardest” is what the businessman says. Even those that go on to be great can have a rough time of getting started but Fear the Walking Dead certainly didn’t! Last week’s premiere was not only critically praised (we liked it very much) but broke cable television ratings records for a season premiere, with the official count standing at just over 10 million ratings. On the back of this success, the creators have already confirmed that next year’s (previously green lit) season 2 will be a longer 13 episode offering. Yet despite such success, this week’s sophomore episode comes with just as much pressure. Last week proved FTWD could produce a good episode. Now can it following that up with consistency to make a good series? In short, hell yeah!

So Close, Yet So Far – After witnessing their walker encounter, Travis, Madison and the family are ready to evacuate the city but the general population still seems unaware. As Travis attempts to re-unite with ex-wife Liza and son Chris before leaving, things turn ugly in the city forcing them to find an unlikely shelter.

“When civilisation ends, it ends fast” decrees Tobias, last week’s surprise MVP making a welcome return. This episode is a rapid downward escalation as things start to fall apart quicker than anyone expected. In this episode, we already see cultural necessities like power and communications start to falter; yet the fun here is that the walker presence is still minimal at best and that in fact the real cause of the problems are regular humans like us. From the little signs of people becoming self-focused and abandoning social responsibilities (like a cop filling up his squad car boot with bottled water) to the more crazy and irrational side of own nature as the downtown riot kicks. The triggering cause is a great twist as crowds of people mistake the police’s efforts to deal with isolated walker incidents as police brutality.... which makes wonderful sense! An early radio broadcast tells of a sudden rise in police shootings and we see people reacting to that being oblivious to anything but the obvious, blissfully unaware that they’re actually campaigning for zombie rights. Then things get even worse as the street devastation sets in, with people causing carnage for no other reason than they think they can. This is a great call back to the long standing Walking Dead motto of the surviving humans being worse than the dead. Here, we see that as society teeters on the edge of collapse, rather than trying to help it back, some of us would rather just kick it over. The narrative presents this in a good format as we see the impressionable and rebellious son Chris get could up in the early protest. The resulting rescue by Travis and Liza helps quickly bring Liza and Chris into the bigger picture. There’s a great moment of Liza seeing the ex-walker corpse and immediately knowing something isn’t right. We also get to meet the other main cast members of the series: the Salazaar family (insert Slytherin jokes). Like any budding survivors, we see them thrown together out of necessity and it looks like we’ll see both family’s moving forward together.

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The episode actually breaks down into several smaller stories as we get the general impression of the main group being slowly pulled together. Along the way there’s some good natural exposition to imply the characters figuring out the basic outbreak principles for themselves. A heartfelt drop in to Alicia’s “you better be dead” boyfriend Matt see them linking bites to the infection. Then later, as Madison takes down the school principle by smashing his head in (easily the most badass moment so far) after Tobias’s torso stabbing did nothing, it sets up the group learning  the rules over brain/head shots. Similarly, we see Tobias turn from student to teacher as he lays looting/scavenging 101 down on Madison. Although his moment of uselessness in the fight highlights a key ideal: that knowledge and smarts are one thing but physical survival is just as important (almost like a street smart, mullet-less Eugene). Physical survival is a big issue for Nick this week as his sudden forced heroine withdrawal leave shim all but incapacitated. This was always going to be feature of his character but it’s great to see the show avoiding the very obvious comparison to Lost’s Charlie Pace by (for now at least) concentrating on the physical consequences rather than the mental and emotional route Lost took.

In terms of criticisms, like last week, the show may still be lacking enough action of some Walking Dead fans. It also still fails to feel like it’s capitalising on its large and sprawling LA setting. Save one or two brief aerial shots and most of the episode could have been set it any regular sized town. Yet this still feels like nitpicking and for every momentary fault there’s a visual gem crammed into the episode. Whether it’s the brilliant surrealism of neighbours still staging a kids birthday party in blissful ignorance, or a shot a departing family all wearing face masks, director Adam Davidson takes great joy teasing all the little stories happening in other nearby lives.

 This episode proves firmly that the pilot was not a one flight wonder and this spin off can maintain all the quality we’d expect from a Walking Dead alumni. The rate of progression feels right on the money as its neither rushing towards a disaster nor taking too long to get there. The characters are developing nicely as their extended family bonds are reinforced, and there’s already a sense of many being changed by the events. 

RIP Wes Craven, sweets dreams you master of nightmares

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