‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 8 Midseason Finale Review: Momo No Mo’

There was just one thing I enjoyed in this week’s Fear The Walking Dead midseason finale (spoilers ahead): Morgan Jones is gone. Nothing against Lennie James, who is a fine actor and I suppose is doing the best with the absurd scripts he’s given, but I have rarely been so relieved to see a character written off a show. Outside of Ian Goldberg, Andrew Chambliss and Scott Gimple, nobody has done more to ruin this series than Morgan.

At the end of the episode, Morgan takes his adopted daughter, Mo, to Eastman’s graveyard and he sends out a walkie-talkie message to Rick Grimes of all people, a man he hasn’t seen in a decade who is almost certainly not anywhere near, who Morgan would probably not even remember much or care about at this point (we do as viewers, but realistically the other people he’s been friends with for all these years would be much closer friends by now) but who rightly assumes that if there is a way to find him, it’s with the magic walkie-talkies.

The rest of the episode was a jumbled mess. Morgan goes crazy and literally sees red. The screen goes red a bunch of times, as the showrunners drag this gimmick as far as they can. Mo stabs him at one point. At another, his companions leave him sinking in quicksand. At multiple points characters show up to exposit at one another, and other characters who probably should just shoot them fail to do so (more’s the pity).

Finch dies offscreen (seriously?) and then Dwight and Sherry, after all these years, break up. I guess that was alright, given how abhorrent their relationship was. They should never have gotten back together in the first place. What a silly way to end their arc, even if they were terrible for one another. Why were they even in this show to begin with?

Hey, why was PADRE in this show? They talked about it for half of last season, then introduced Shrike as this big bad villain and then killed her off in Episode 6! What?

One thing I also enjoyed: The look of pure happiness on Madison / Kim Dickens’s face when Morgan says he’s leaving. She looks genuinely thrilled to get her show back at long last.

And I suppose that’s where we’re headed in 8B. The new cast is mostly gone, either departing like Morgan or just not showing up this season, mysteriously, like Sarah or the rabbi. We’re left with Madison and Daniel and June, who will reunite with Strand and Luciana. I suppose Dwight and Sherry might still be around, just not together (maybe they’ll get back together in the series finale!) and the big bad will now be none other than Troy Otto.

Troy’s return has been leaked for a while now, but the final scene of this episode shows a mysterious figure with several items: Strand’s sunglasses, Alycia’s arm and the hammer that Madison used to “kill” Troy before the dam blew up quite literally on top of him. Naturally, he has survived all of this and is out for revenge . . . ten years later, give or take. What cartoonish nonsense.

I know some people are excited to see a return to a united original cast (or what’s left of it) and one of the show’s best villains (anti-heroes?) but I have zero faith whatsoever in the people who are producing and writing this show to deliver. I suspect it will be another six episodes of exposition, convenience, walkie-talkies, absurd scenarios and wooden dialogue, culminating in something very similar to what we got in this episode. Can’t wait for them to ruin another character!

Scattered thoughts:

• Where did the zombie horde actually go?
• Why were they so nice to Shrike in the end? She was a horrible person.
• I think my favorite characters this season so far have been Strand and Luciana.
• This was another very sloppy episode. I think Shrike was bitten on the other side of the neck from where the wound was shown.
• I will reiterate here that I was never a fan of Madison, and her returning to be the main protagonist does not excite me. I liked the idea of her becoming a villain by the end of Fear but now she is just another cardboard person with no real identity outside of her interactions with Morgan.
• Mo ended up being pretty ridiculous in the end, disregarding adults, leading children twice her age. She certainly never came across as an eight year old.
• Finch’s line “Nobody should have to feel like this” was maybe the one good line, with any real emotional weight, in the entire episode.

Okay, onto The Walking Dead: Dead City and a bit of a wait for the second half of Season 8. I. LITERALLY. CAN’T. WAIT.

What did you think of the midseason finale, dearest readers of mine? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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