Fear the Walking Dead: Wrath
October 2, 2016 8:08 PM - Season 2, Episode 14 - Subscribe
The Bromigos arrive at the hotel as the Narcos are planning to assault the colonia. Ofelia continues her trip north.
Hmm. Mixed feelings about this one.
* Leaving Strand behind was jarring. Per the AV Club comments section:
* Chris dying in flashback really worked for me. I think they leaned on flashbacks too heavily this season, but I appreciated it in this instance because we never see the actual truth: we get the Apocabro version and we get Travis' imagined version, but we never see what really happened, and I felt like that was an effective choice. I wish this sort of fiction would do that more often: leave us hanging a bit when someone dies offscreen.
* Madison was basically nonstop awful here. Her attempt to shield Travis from the truth with Chris was bad. Her plan to get rid of the Apocabros was half-cocked. Her decision to stay at the hotel overnight while someone might be dying because of Travis was completely idiotic. Her decision to go to the cartel hideout to bother impatient men with machine guns about Nick some more was suicidal. Her rifling through the pockets of dead people for ID was ridiculous and ghoulish.
I feel like she's going all Rick Grimes on us.
* Alicia was great. I'm glad they're giving Alycia Debnam-Carey a little more to do here, because every time they waste her, I'm mad about The 100 all over again.
* I liked about half of Nick's plot.
- The cartel guys planning to take La Colonia was stupid. They were importing *water*, of all things. They gave Nick advance notice of their attack, allowing for better resistance. They didn't bother to offer the residents a chance to join them as laborers or the like. Nonstop bad planning.
- Nick's efforts to get Alejandro to admit the truth and to get Luciana out of there worked for me. I liked the performances all around, there.
- The whole group marching toward the border was definitely past the point of 'willing suspension of disbelief' about the Walker guts trick - Luciana kissing the face of a little girl whose cheeks were smeared with gore? No. No. No. Get some sheets, be quieter and look disgusted, folks.
- Given the year we've been having, I actually find the idea of a bunch of white guys with guns shooting Mexicans at the border - in the middle of the apocalypse - sadly plausible.
So... hm. Dunno what to make of this. I'll be back next season because it still appeals to me more than TWD, and I'm curious what they do with it, but... yeah. This was a definite step backward.
posted by mordax at 12:55 PM on October 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
* Leaving Strand behind was jarring. Per the AV Club comments section:
Even Kirkman, when asked about it on Talking Dead, had no real answer as to why Strand chose to do that. He all but admitted it was for plot convenience and that they wanted to show more of the hotel group.I was irritated - while Strand can plainly see that the Manawa/Clark family is a walking disaster area, he just opted to stay behind after pointing a gun at people, knowing the fence was going to be damaged, and having seen them leave a body to turn in a crowded and unprepared building. I'm sure he could've come up with a better plan than 'I'll talk my way out of this shit after taking your side.' At least he could've asked to be hit and claimed they turned on him and left him.
* Chris dying in flashback really worked for me. I think they leaned on flashbacks too heavily this season, but I appreciated it in this instance because we never see the actual truth: we get the Apocabro version and we get Travis' imagined version, but we never see what really happened, and I felt like that was an effective choice. I wish this sort of fiction would do that more often: leave us hanging a bit when someone dies offscreen.
* Madison was basically nonstop awful here. Her attempt to shield Travis from the truth with Chris was bad. Her plan to get rid of the Apocabros was half-cocked. Her decision to stay at the hotel overnight while someone might be dying because of Travis was completely idiotic. Her decision to go to the cartel hideout to bother impatient men with machine guns about Nick some more was suicidal. Her rifling through the pockets of dead people for ID was ridiculous and ghoulish.
I feel like she's going all Rick Grimes on us.
* Alicia was great. I'm glad they're giving Alycia Debnam-Carey a little more to do here, because every time they waste her, I'm mad about The 100 all over again.
* I liked about half of Nick's plot.
- The cartel guys planning to take La Colonia was stupid. They were importing *water*, of all things. They gave Nick advance notice of their attack, allowing for better resistance. They didn't bother to offer the residents a chance to join them as laborers or the like. Nonstop bad planning.
- Nick's efforts to get Alejandro to admit the truth and to get Luciana out of there worked for me. I liked the performances all around, there.
- The whole group marching toward the border was definitely past the point of 'willing suspension of disbelief' about the Walker guts trick - Luciana kissing the face of a little girl whose cheeks were smeared with gore? No. No. No. Get some sheets, be quieter and look disgusted, folks.
- Given the year we've been having, I actually find the idea of a bunch of white guys with guns shooting Mexicans at the border - in the middle of the apocalypse - sadly plausible.
So... hm. Dunno what to make of this. I'll be back next season because it still appeals to me more than TWD, and I'm curious what they do with it, but... yeah. This was a definite step backward.
posted by mordax at 12:55 PM on October 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
So... hm. Dunno what to make of this. I'll be back next season because it still appeals to me more than TWD, and I'm curious what they do with it, but... yeah. This was a definite step backward.
That's definitely where I am on the finale. Madison sure as hell spent a lot of time carrying the idiot ball in the last few episodes, and it sucks. It's also complete out of character.
I wonder about the writer's room mechanics on a show like this sometimes, particularly when there's one "celebrity writer" bouncing around between multiple projects. My personal feeling on Kirkman is that he's just another overrated dude who writes uncritically toxic masculine characters, so I'm tempted to concoct a scenario where he just kind of fucks off for most of the mid-season and then comes in right at the end with a bunch of shitty ideas that derail the smart character work and world-building that the other writers have been doing.
That's probably not actually how it works, but that's how it feels when you follow one of these shows that tips over the line between character drama and "event television" right around the season break, especially when the latter comes at the expense of the consistent characterisation that makes the former work.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:10 PM on October 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
That's definitely where I am on the finale. Madison sure as hell spent a lot of time carrying the idiot ball in the last few episodes, and it sucks. It's also complete out of character.
I wonder about the writer's room mechanics on a show like this sometimes, particularly when there's one "celebrity writer" bouncing around between multiple projects. My personal feeling on Kirkman is that he's just another overrated dude who writes uncritically toxic masculine characters, so I'm tempted to concoct a scenario where he just kind of fucks off for most of the mid-season and then comes in right at the end with a bunch of shitty ideas that derail the smart character work and world-building that the other writers have been doing.
That's probably not actually how it works, but that's how it feels when you follow one of these shows that tips over the line between character drama and "event television" right around the season break, especially when the latter comes at the expense of the consistent characterisation that makes the former work.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:10 PM on October 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
I wonder about the writer's room mechanics on a show like this sometimes, particularly when there's one "celebrity writer" bouncing around between multiple projects. My personal feeling on Kirkman is that he's just another overrated dude who writes uncritically toxic masculine characters, so I'm tempted to concoct a scenario where he just kind of fucks off for most of the mid-season and then comes in right at the end with a bunch of shitty ideas that derail the smart character work and world-building that the other writers have been doing.
I'm not inclined to blame Kirkman for most of this. I mean... based on my reading 100-some odd issues of TWD, and a similar amount of his run on Invincible, my feeling is that his work is middling but competent. All of his comics are worlds better than the TWD TV stuff.
(His main weakness is dialogue, rather than just writing shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons - the one main thing I'm sure is his fault is Abraham sounding like Yosemite Sam. None of his comics are nihilistic libertarian wankfests, not that I saw, anyway.)
posted by mordax at 3:53 PM on October 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm not inclined to blame Kirkman for most of this. I mean... based on my reading 100-some odd issues of TWD, and a similar amount of his run on Invincible, my feeling is that his work is middling but competent. All of his comics are worlds better than the TWD TV stuff.
(His main weakness is dialogue, rather than just writing shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons - the one main thing I'm sure is his fault is Abraham sounding like Yosemite Sam. None of his comics are nihilistic libertarian wankfests, not that I saw, anyway.)
posted by mordax at 3:53 PM on October 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Abraham sounding like Yosemite Sam is one of the only enjoyable things about the dreary slog of the last few TWD seasons.)
posted by tobascodagama at 5:26 PM on October 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 5:26 PM on October 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
The bromigos remind me of the doctors at Gary Larsen's horse hospital. Like, really, you have to shoot people once they injure a leg? Even for Less than Zero style nihilist sociopaths, it seems like a waste of bullets.
posted by whir at 9:52 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by whir at 9:52 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
So, FWIW, this is labeled Episode 14, but we seem to be discussing Episode 15 here.
That said, are we headed towards some creepy treatment of women at the border? "We've got a bleeder..." I first took that to mean Luciana had been shot, and then I was all ohhhh :(
Also, the drug guys and their machine guns being overrun by that tiny joke of a horde even with an uphill advantage was a bit absurd. But I was sick of them, so I'll take it.
posted by ktkt at 8:40 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
That said, are we headed towards some creepy treatment of women at the border? "We've got a bleeder..." I first took that to mean Luciana had been shot, and then I was all ohhhh :(
Also, the drug guys and their machine guns being overrun by that tiny joke of a horde even with an uphill advantage was a bit absurd. But I was sick of them, so I'll take it.
posted by ktkt at 8:40 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
14 and 15 were aired together as the two-hour finale, but I didn't want to split them into two threads.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:11 AM on October 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by tobascodagama at 8:11 AM on October 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
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Travis going beast mode on the Bromigos was something that was building up for a while. Will it actually change his character going into next season, though? Or will he retain his moral center?
As for the Nick side of the story... What the fuck was he thinking taking a group of Mexican refugees to the border? Even if he was counting on the border guards abandoning their post, did he really expect the American refugee camp to take him in? Or, for that matter, to be any better than the last American refugee camp he was in?
To be extremely charitable, maybe he knew it was a bad idea but felt pressed to come up with some concrete destination just to get Luciana out of the path of the narcos. Still, though. Still.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:14 PM on October 2, 2016 [1 favorite]