Fear the Walking Dead: Did the Finale Redeem the Show?
By Jeremy Dick
With just one week to go until The Walking Dead‘s long-awaited return, its spin-off series, Fear the Walking Dead, aired its conclusion. The season finale, called The Good Man, put an end to a rather slow-moving first season of the show. After five episodes of building up, was the season finale able to deliver a powerful enough punch to make viewers want to come back for next year?
More from 1428 Elm
- Shudder Original Terrified: Poltergeist or Dimensional Beings?
- Godzilla Minus One makes the King of the Monsters terrifying again
- A Creature Was Stirring scares up yuletide frights
- Unwrapping the Unhappy Holidays collection on Shudder
- Holiday Horror viewing guide: 20+ movies to stream this Christmas
While my answer to that would be something like, “Not really,” I’ll still be tuning in next season, as will many other fans of The Walking Dead. While most of us can agree that the entire first season of Fear the Walking Dead didn’t even come close to capturing the same level excitement as the series it spawned from, it has served its purpose as a “companion series.” Think of it as a light appetizer before the main course, preparing us for what appears to be an amazing sixth season of The Walking Dead.
The major problem with Fear the Walking Dead is definitely its characters. I want to like them all, but none of them have really given me much reason to do so, other than the druggie Nick (who I suppose I just feel sorry for). Especially when you compare it to The Walking Dead, a show that has always provided excellent characters by bringing new great ones in when others are killed off, you realize that this series is in dire need of someone like Michonne or Daryl. But, I will say that this new character Strand, the wealthy businessman who helped bust out Nick from the military compound, is rather interesting.
At least this finale finally showed us some damn zombies, even if we only saw them for a short time. This outbreak took place in Los Angeles, and you’d think we’d have seen millions of walkers by now. Seeing them finally overtaking the quarantine area was long overdue, even it it only reinforced the fact that they are only a real threat when in great numbers.
As luck would have it for the Manawa and Clark families, Strand even invited them along to a mansion on the Pacific coast, complete with a boat ready to go for when the walkers eventually find the glass walls of the house. The bad news, however, was that Liza was bitten on their way over there. I was expecting a main character’s death at the end of the finale, and I had my suspicions that it’d be Liza— so there were no surprises here. And because she had been rather unlikable during the entire season, her death really didn’t carry much of an emotional impact. It was “just another day at the office” in the world of The Walking Dead, I suppose.
More from The Walking Dead
- First 7 seasons of Fear the Walking Dead will stream on AMC+!
- AMC releases premiere date, new images for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
- Joe Bob and The Last Drive-In present first episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City
- New trailer released for The Walking Dead: Dead City
- AMC: Big announcements made at WonderCon for The Walking Dead spinoffs
Fear the Walking Dead got off to a rather sluggish start, with a slow-paced storyline and underdeveloped characters. The finale wasn’t as exciting as I was hoping for, either. But I do think Strand’s beach house makes for a very interesting location. It obviously isn’t going to be safe forever, and maybe we’ll finally see some more actual conflict when Season 2 rolls around. I’m sure I’ll be eagerly anticipating Season 7 of The Walking Dead next year, so I’ll be watching Fear the Walking Dead again while I wait.
I’ll just be smart enough not to go in with high expectations this time.