Thursday, June 7, 2018

Fear the Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 7: The Wrong Side of Where You Are Now





John has been shot, Naomi is upset by this and there’s a huge firefight between Alicia’s gang and Mel (brother of Ennis) and his vultures. Alicia would quite like to kill Naomi but Morgan decides to get involved because that’s his thing now - leaping into situations he knows virtually nothing about.

We also have Charlotte, the evil child infiltrator of doom - and Jacinda almost seems ready to pull the trigger. Instead she’s distracted by more appropriate targets and Charlotte escapes - to be grabbed by Morgan because he’s just rescuing everyone. He manages to convince Althea to stop filming and play rescue vehicle - since her truck has big enough guns to back down even Alicia in her full rampage mode

Despite being outnumber 165643 to 1, Alicia, Victor and Jacinda cut a bloody swath through the Vultures who start running away  - led by Mel who flees in an ambulance. Which Alicia shoots. With an RPG. And when he crawls out near death she finishes him off. Alicia is not playing.

Naomi needs medical supplies to save John, the nicest man in the apocalypse - which means going to the one place she knows with supplies. The Stadium - which even the Vultures dare not raid for supplies.

Inside the whole place is crawling with a gazillion gazillion zombies.

Time to check the past and how we got to this stage

Because everything was going quite well, they had new plans and supplies to rebuild, Madison was spreading peace and light everywhere, the Vultures have left and she is determined to make everything work and it all looks shiny and wonderful.

When they get a visitor - Charlotte the evil devil child. She wants help because Mel has split up from the Vultures and has now got in trouble, injured and in need of help.


Sensible people say “hell no” though none of them suggest burning the devil child. Madison, however, is all compassion and light and insists they go offer help bringing the injured guy in. Nick is specially suspicious but Madison insists they have to learn to trust: just as she has with Naomi and Victor.

They bring Mel in, he’s injured with broken ribs and needs help which they give. But while being helped he talks about needing to run because Ennis will make the settlement fall; he’s not willing to let them go. He is so ominous that he makes the very skittish Naomi super super nervous. She goes to Madison - who is busy fortifying against Ennis’s attack - to try and convince her to leave. But Madison refuses: she built this place for her children. But it’s more than that - like Nick she seems to have an almost pathological fear of being outside - not so much because it’s dangerous but because of what it does to them, how it forces them to live. Creating the Stadium allowed them to cling to some sense of civilisation rather than scavenging and violence - it’s a powerful symbol for her. Though she is becoming a powerful symbol for others

She even tells Naomi about the Just In Case care she had Alicia set up - and how she has no intention of using it.

But she does make one decision - Mel has to go. He’s too much of a threat and a danger - though they do insist on keeping the devil child Charlotte. But she’s done too well in spreading peace and light - too many of her people believe in shiny second chances. Perhaps especially Victor since he’s only around because she gave him a second chance.

So when Charlotte, the evil, cries that Mel is all alone and dying and needs help the soft hearted people decide they need to go rescue him: Alicia, Nick and Jacinda. Oooh, look, the survivors who are part of the modern story. What a coincidence

They go to rescue Mel outside the wall which means they’re not there when Ennis makes his move: all those numbered flags denote zombie numbers. We’ve seen Ennis and his Vultures herd zombies into containers; well this is why. By gathering these hundreds of zombies he has his own herd. And, more, he sets them on fire which is a problem for the wooden walls of the Stadium

Madison responds to this by deciding to go outside of these safe walls to safe Nick, Alicia and Jacinda - with Victor joining because he’s Madison’s number one fan.

Which leaves me sure that Madison will die: clearly all of the people at the Stadium died except Naomi (apparently in Alicia’s Just In Case van) except for those outside the wall: Nick, Alicia, Jacinda, Victor… and Madison. So something has happened to Madison in the escape.

There’s also the question of Mel - in the past he seems to be clearly more morally grey than the evil Ennis. Not necessarily planning evil doom - but cynically expecting the stadium to collapse: but not agreeing with CAUSING that collapse. But by the present he’s not only back with the Vultures but Alicia furiously wants him very very dead