Fear the Walking Dead - S01E04 Not Fade Away (2015)

Review

We learn it has been nine days since the military have arrived and they have erected wire fences around the suburb and cleared the near vicinity of the infected. Daniel Salazar remains sceptical about what it all means while Travis continues his naïve approach to daily life post infection breakout. Chris, filming from the rooftop, notes a reflection from a house on a nearby hill in the DZ but can't get his father to take it seriously. Maddie agrees the reflection isn't random and decides to go out beyond the fences and investigate. She finds streets fill of the dead and army patrols but for whatever reason doesn't continue her quest.

Meanwhile the military under the direction of Doctor Bethany Exner are taking people away to a hospital somewhere else in the city. Daniel sees reflections of El Salvador and the death squads and warns Maddie to keep Nick close. The inevitable happens and the military come for the injured Griselda Salazar and Nick, Liza decides to go with them which confirms Maddie's suspicions that Liza brought the military down on them.

For the first time this season I believe we are starting to see some art and symbolism being added to Fear that will have older horror fans nodding their heads in approval. Sorry kids but horror is all about subversion and a lot less about the gore you may have come to expect. If you check the Romero Dead Universe you'll note each movie has certain social messages in amongst the shambling dead, well at least till Romero lost it from movie five or so. Maddie goes over the wall, or at least through the wire, and discovers the de-militarised zone (DZ) is full of rotting bodies, some of which weren't infected at the time the military rolled into town. Graffiti on one of the background walls alludes to the area being peoples' homes, clearly the military were showing very little regard when it came to clearing the area. Later in the episode the graffiti is refrained when the soldiers invade Maddie's home to pick up Griselda and as it turns out Nick. Notably Travis is still trying to placate the situation while Daniel is well aware of what happens when military squads arrive to take away individuals. Echoes of not only what happened in El Salvador but also what went down recently outside the wire, the parallels are being drawn with no degree of anxiety. Two thumbs up, bit of a sucker for an outing that has echoes happening during the runtime. America can quickly unravel into a military dictatorship, don't trust the guys with the guns and all the answers being the message.

The episode starts in quite startling fashion, or at least underpins how thwart the situation is even without the dead shambling down Main Street. Lou Reed's Perfect Day is played over the opening scenes as we see Nick taking a swim and Travis out on his morning jog. Naturally there's a few disconcerting notes, Daniel staring out, but the intention is clearly to show Travis and Maddie trying to get back to some sort of normality in the safe zone. Alicia and Chris are having none of that and the feeling is underlined as the kitchen clock ticks on as the family marks time in the midst of the apocalypse. See some cinematic art finally going into the series, though I would be the first to say steady on there, let's not get too arty farty as end of day zombie outing y'all.

So attempts clearing being made to ensure the first episode is going to be memorable for the right reasons

Of interest to me was the light show from the apartment outside on a hill in the DZ. Chris is on the roof filming, opening the way no doubt to a detour into found footage later in the season, when he notes and captures a series of light reflections from a building in the supposed depopulated DZ. He quickly surmises the reflections aren't random, someone out there is trying to communicate. Now I can understand Travis brushing off his son, the neighbourhood "mayor" has a job of work trying to appease the soldiers as tensions raise between them and the civilians, but surely even Stevie Wonder would have noted the reflections weren't random. Anyone else thinking Travis needs to start nutting up? Anyways the scene neatly bookmarks the episode with Travis on the roof in the final few minutes noting the light reflections are now flashes of gunfire, which I'll leave to Daniel to no doubt voice what we are all thinking. Travis has directly caused the death of another group of survivors by pointing out to new series' villain Lt. Moyers that Chris saw the reflections. Anyone else drawing parallels with the Governor. Both Moyers and the Gov like to play golf shots in the post-apocalyptic ruins for starters.

Okay one thing in the episode didn't work for me, I can hear you all saying "just one thing huh", and that was the whole suicide note left by Aunty Sue. Apparently she saw something that horrified her, moreover something that was prophesised to go down. Say what? Exactly what did she see, this is never explained or hinted at even though Fade Away spends at least two scenes on the goddamn note! To be honest they needed to edit these scenes out or at the very least offer the viewer some clue as to what lead Sue to going suicidal. The note is waved around a couple of times and then dropped like a stale can of beer.

A couple of character developments had me nodding my head in approval at how things are developing. Maddie learns Nick is a junkie and as such can't be trusted, which given her occupation pre-apocalypse should have been a given. Nick has been stealing the next door neighbour's morphine rather than using the drugs Maddie purloined from the High School in order to ween him off his addiction. Meanwhile Ofelia Salazar has developed a liaison with a soldier, Corporal Andrew Adams, which seems to have more to do with getting medication for her mom and perhaps less to do with a romantic angle. At least that's the notion I took from a rather laboured conversation between the two. Is this indicating Ofelia is following in her father's footsteps when it comes to survival?

Not Fade Away as an episode moved the season along nicely. We have now jumped a couple of months, and while not being shown the actual fall of L.A, are still very much in the apocalyptic vanguard. I'm not entirely sure fans of the universe are going to be happy with this, I was hoping for a much longer period of Travis for one becoming convinced that the dead are indeed up and walking again, but I guess we aren't going to get this. Thus far the season, if anything, is all about not trusting the Government or its agencies when it comes to the end of times. The soldiers are still talking about retaking L.A, clearly not going to happen, and secrets are being kept, chief amongst them for our group of survivors is what is happening to the people that the military take away. Two episodes to go, the first season now needs a lift in my opinion, we have clearly moved from the initial outbreak of the infection, time to show what exactly that means. I'm still loving the spin off series but can understand why some others are less involved with it. Seriously worth catching if you are an adult drama fan after something with a bit of bite.