Fear the Walking Dead: Blood in the Sand

May 1, 2016 7:29 PM - Season 2, Episode 4

The group lets a family in distress board the Abigail; Strand's past begins to come to light; Nick looks for an associate of Strand's.
posted by tobascodagama (9 comments total)

The editing in this was so confusing. Just me? For example, oh look, the guy coming back in the raft with Nick has a g---oh ok he's shot all the bad people on Abigail now. Plus the logistical idiocy of solo missions on land is such that I begin to think of them as occurring at some temporal remove from the boat's timeline, as the actual flashbacks are. They feel hallucinatory because I just can't believe Nick would be 'allowed' to go do this stupid/dangerous stuff by himself. And also because of the blood all over him.
posted by sylvanshine at 10:37 PM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Strand sent Nick alone because he didn't want anyone else to know about Luis and the Flotilla. Strand was obviously planning to ditch everyone else.

Agreed about the poor editing, though. The other show has the same problem. There's no consistent sense of time or place to anything that happens.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:19 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was left unclear as to what the Flotilla is and how Mexico is planning on keeping people out of the country by protecting thousands of miles of shoreline during a zombie apocalypse.
posted by Seamus at 7:19 AM on May 2, 2016

I didn't get the impression that the Flotilla was guarding the entire shoreline, more that it was trying to block refugees escaping south from California. It's also not clear yet whether it's a government fleet or something else.

What's interesting here is that we'll be getting our first glimpse of how other countries have been handling the zombie apocalypse. In Georgia, you could avoid thinking about it, but that's just not possible in southern California.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:17 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

The editing in this was so confusing.

I was hoping Chris McCaleb, who came from Better Call Saul, would be an indicator of good editing, but it seems he's one of a few editors this season, and I can't speak to the experience of the others.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:28 AM on May 2, 2016

Well, I failed this episode or it failed me because I don't even know what y'all talkin' about re "flotilla", for one thing. Wonder if I missed a scene.

I still don't believe Nick's parent(s?) would let him run around like that. He's an adult, ok, but this is the zombie fucking apocalypse and he has an history of irresponsibility. Was there any scene that established that Nick had been sent to do something... I'm looking at the first scene where Nick washes up on a beach in the dark, and even now I literally have no idea how to interpret that. Why is it dark, why does he appear to have just saved himself from some fate, was his goal to get to that camp? So what happened is my mind went "mysterious cold open suggests different timeline in play". I could write a lot about how this episode failed me but I think it would come off as "sylvanshine is stupid" so I'll leave it here. (Here's another teaser of me dumb: they show Strand on the boat, having second thoughts about grabbing his Big Gun, and then the boat is taken over and we never see him again--What??)

I'm gonna find a recap now. Maybe even watch it again!
posted by sylvanshine at 7:57 PM on May 2, 2016

Strand sends Nick to get Luis from a real-estate development they were building (they both work for Thomas Abigail). They didn't tell anyone Nick was going. It's probably why the boat was stopped that let the thieves catch them to begin with.

After Strand discovers Daniel has taken his ammunition, he steals the raft the thieves used to board the yacht. One of them shoots the raft.

Strand negotiates real-estate deals for Thomas, Luis grew up with Thomas because his mom worked for the Abigail family.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:47 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Was there any scene that established that Nick had been sent to do something ... my mind went "mysterious cold open suggests different timeline in play".

I had the same experience. I actually paused it, and looked up the previous episode on the wiki to refresh my memory on where we last saw Nick. And it seems that we last saw him on the boat, safe and sound with everyone else after escaping the horde on the beach.

So this was a pretty weird editing choice, if you ask me – I couldn't figure out whether I was seeing a different timeframe (the future? the past?), or if we were meant to understand that Nick had fallen overboard (or otherwise gotten himself into trouble).
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:20 PM on May 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Right, it was really distracting. At first, I assumed he went overboard and that we were watching some in media res thing that the episode would circle back to later. But the bag of clothes contradicted that, as it indicated planning. So then, based on the helicopter and wall, I assumed maybe he was drug-muling across the border. But then the "Save Us" sign and tent city indicated that we were firmly post-apocalypse.

I'm constantly having the same issues with TWD, and it's extremely off-putting. Hopefully, the guy they brought over from BCS will be able to improve the editing situation for next season.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:29 PM on May 4, 2016