Maybe Watch At Double Speed

In the latest episode of Fear The Walking Dead, Morgan returns to King County to find the zombified version of his son, Duane, to end his long suffering and lay him to rest.

Then Grace shows up, because she figured out where he was going from a code she thought he sent, but it was actually sent from Mo, who figured out where he was going also. Then Dwight and Sherry and some of the bird people show up because they also figured out where he was going, and demand to take him back to Padre, because Padre and Shrike have their son, Finch, who has been miraculously cured from his zombie bite by radiation.

Radiation is also killing Grace (again) but when she’s bitten at the end of the episode, they need to take her to June to get huge doses of radiation treatment to save her, even though in her current state that will certainly kill her—unless Morgan can get her pregnant and they can use her baby’s death as a way to suck the radiation out of her (again).

The return to King County should feel like a loving nod to the earliest days of The Walking Dead, when Rick and Morgan first meet in Season 1. Instead, it’s just as dumb as ever. Morgan can’t find Duane and starts going Morgan-Crazy. Every time he looks down the sites of his old rifle, he sees his dead wife walking around, despite her dying over a decade ago at this point. This is so gimmicky. Not looking down sites, he sees normal zombies. Looks down sites and suddenly bam it’s his wife. Good grief.

At one point Grace mentions that she was listening to a book at double speed which is a reference to when she was dying from radiation in Season 5 (I think). I recommend you watch this episode at double speed so that your suffering will be over twice as quick. It’s also quite hilarious to behold!

In any case, Dwight and Sherry end up helping Morgan instead of capturing him because “This is just like what we were doing at Sanctuary” he says, despite them having done this for far, far longer. These showrunners are ghastly when it comes to time-jumping in a way that feels even remotely plausible.

Bad episode, but not the worst of the season. But the location reminds us of a time when The Walking Dead was good, before it became this shambling husk of a franchise. Before we were treated like idiots who needed to be told what ‘clear’ meant instead of letting that word just hang there. What did you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.