Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Warning: Full spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead's two-episode Season 3 premiere below.
Fear the Walking Dead returned with a double dose of intensity as Season 3 hit us with a huge loss right out of the gate, in the form of Travis' death, while galvanizing the Clark family into a grieving force that, if called for, was ready to take over their new "home base" by force.
Threats from both walkers and humans were balanced nicely in "Eye of the Beholder" and "The New Frontier" as doomsday-preppers, the Otto family, were introduced as a new story element -- saviors to the untrained eye, save for problem child Troy (Daniel Sharman) and his calmly unhinged tendencies to murder strangers for fun. Sorry, did I say for fun? I meant for "science."
And so because of Troy's creepy wild card contributions, Madison and patriarch Jeremiah (SOA's Dayton Callie) found themselves on severely uneasy ground by the end of this two-parter. The Brokejaw Ranch -- Jeremiah's isolated, self-sustaining commune -- quickly became a place that Madison had decided to exploit while Luciana received medical care.
Jeremiah tried to smooth things over at times, but Troy had already caused too much damaged. Not only had he and his cronies (including a short-lived soldier played by Shameless' Noel Fisher) attempted to murder Travis and Nick, but Madison and Alicia had to physically battle the bastard -- sticking a spoon in his eye and holding him hostage! -- to free themselves. Then there was the whole thing with Travis getting dumped in that walker pit and then, eventually, dying on the chopper ride to the ranch. It's too much to forgive at this point and I really liked Madison's hardline approach to things.
Nick's thinking was more along the lines of leaving the ranch behind but Madison was keen on using them for as long as she could and then overrunning the joint. I mean -- that's a wicked idea to workshop. The ranch is filled with armed survivalists and all Madison has is one (signed for) gun and her kids. But she's so confident in her abilities, and running on a potent combination of grief and grit, that her zompocalypse harshness is pretty awesome.
Normally, I'm not a fan of double-sized premieres or finales when they're actually billed two separate chapters, but I feel like it would have been a bad idea to wait another week with Travis' (presumed) death. It was such a huge ordeal, and big moment for him, to survive that zombie pit that I don't think it would have narratively worked to wait until the following Sunday and then kill him off right away. It all needed to all bleed together so that we could connect his demise more to the turmoil with Troy, all the chaos he caused for everyone, and our protagonist's new "friends" - which includes The Following's Sam Underwood as Jake, the good son who seems to be tasked with wrangling Troy, yet also doesn't appear to be sorry enough for the damage Troy has caused.
2. The Death of Chris Sends Travis Down a Dark Road
If this is indeed the end for Travis (honestly, I can't see a way out for him, but you never know), he'll be missed. After he murdered those two d-bags at the end of Season 2, it felt like he'd finally, and painfully, morphed into a fierce and ferocious wasteland warrior. You know, after languishing for too long in wishy-washy mode. And watching him maul his way through those walkers was freakin' cool. It was such a well done sequence that I was almost sure it had to be the end for him. But he emerged alive and triumphant. Only to be taken out on the ride to the ranch by unknown assailants. I'm not sure why Travis needed to go, at this point, since his death marked the end of that entire Manawa side of the blended family. Now we're just left with the Clarks and their crazy new situation.
But maybe that's enough. Maybe Travis was too damaged a soul to continue and should now only serve, in death, as a motivation for Madison and Nick (who blames himself for all of it) to stop squabbling and start surviving more as a unit. Alicia, too, seems to be more on board having gone through a ton of recent trauma - from having to murder Andrés to fighting Troy to watching Travis sacrifice himself with that fall. A lot of her past struggles have involved her resentment of Nick and the lengths Madison went to in order to find him, or protect him, but now maybe she'll complete the picture here - the final piece of the Clark family re-allignment. She's proven herself to be more than capable of helping take down a commune from within - but will she develop a soft spot for Jake? That's be a shame since it would feel too forced and telegraphed.
Nick's big moment, at the end, holding the gun on Troy, felt great too. I won't go so far as to say that the main characters feel like they're making smarter decisions these days, but they are making instinctual ones that please me as a viewer. Even if they're dangerous. Travis actively fighting back against the soldiers in the first episode was very satisfying, as was Madison's plan to take down Troy. Now that mostly everyone's back together (though the show teased splitting them up again right at the end of the first episode tonight), we're far enough into the series now where it's believable for them to formulate a plan and execute it with enough precision to steer their own fate. It's the buy-in when watching zombie sagas. Anyone this far into an outbreak gets "experience" and that affords them the ability to make tough calls and take tough stances.
Both of these chapters also came with some nice carnage - from hordes of rampaging sewer walkers to that spoon stab (gah!) to Travis' savage survival mode in that pit (cinderblocks and rebar!) to his final dive out of the chopper. These premiere episodes had bite. It was a strong start to the season, though I still grew frustrated, here and there, once the "good" Ottos were introduced, why more wasn't said about all the awful things Troy did. Nick brought it up a few times, but not enough. Maybe that's why him pointing his gun at Troy felt so good.
Off to the side, popping up in the second chapter, was Strand back at the resort, trying to hang as long as he could. His angle here, pretending to be a doctor in order to calm the masses at the gate, ultimately wound up feeling weird because he basically got booted out for greatly helping the situation. Sure, he may have been discovered one day, and things might have turned bad because of it, but I feel like there was an easy work-around for that. The decision to kick him out felt arbitrary, though at least he got a cool car out of it.
The Verdict
Fear the Walking Dead's two-part opener pulled very few punches as it unleashed gore galore and shocked us with a big character death that worked to fuel the story going forward. Sure, the Clarks might have to stay at Brokejaw for a while and the season may feel a bit stifled at some point because of it, but the characters seem to be instinctually making good decisions right now and that's enough to keep the engine humming.
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