This week, the group realizes that they can clear out the gulch 2 minutes after calling Ginny. John and June are married, Grace is pregnant, Morgan is shot, and the group is separated. My name is Kent, and for Fear The Walking Dead, I only ask 5 questions and some final thoughts to make this blog a little more compact your reading pleasure. Any comments in BOLD are written by me. I hope you enjoy and if you or someone you know may want to do this blog, contact me, leave a comment, whatever. The contact info is at the bottom of this blog.
1. Are you surprised that this season featured no members of the group dying? No, I’m not counting Tom because he was there for an hour or something. No, I’m not counting Morgan because he’s clearly gonna survive.
Bob: Morgan is going to survive? Flash Gordon’s alive? I felt it was definitely left open for Morgan to survive. Can I mention that in reality with those two that close that she really would not have been able to get a shot off? I mentioned it. Especially with Morgan’s amount of training. At least it wasn’t a kill shot… (It definitely wasn’t a kill shot. Talking Dead assured us of that. Yeah, they tried making Ginny more badass than she should be. Morgan, John, and Daniel are probably the 3 that she isn’t going to take out, so I don’t know why they didn’t play it differently. Wait, I watched the whole season. I get it now.)
Raylene: Oh for sure this season just was lackluster. (I don’t know if this show gets renewed for season 7 if this doesn’t improve.)
Kent: Yeah, I am surprised because you have too many characters and now you are splitting everybody up so nobody gets much shine and the show feels plodding. Didn’t they learn anything from seasons 7 & 8 of TWD when everybody got sick of this very thing? Guess they didn’t get the memo.
2. Would it make sense for season 6’s first half to be similar to season 4’s? What I mean by that is a mixture of time periods to show how things have gone, maybe kill off a character or two. Or do you think that this is going to play off more like Game of Thrones, as in a neverending series of pairs of characters and matching them up for the sake of feeling new?
Bob: ahhhh. Mmmm… that is an interesting idea. Now I will be looking out for that. (Just remember, if I want something on TV, it’s not gonna happen unless their name is Gendry. Look how long it took for Tara to get got.)
Raylene: I think it’ll be pairing of characters for the first half then miraculously the group will reunite. (The reunion is happening, and nobody will be dead still, aside from Tom.)
Kent: I’d love the time-shifting. The first half of season 4 was brilliantly done and they need to think more like that. They absolutely wasted the Logan story and the kids’ story. They had so many interesting things happening early in this season. We had walkers tied together. So we had all this great promise, and we get Ginny.
3. Since I am assuming that they are splitting up a good chunk of people, I want you to give me 3-5 pairings of characters that you would like to see or would find interesting.
Bob: Strand and Skidmark, Alicia and not Wes, John and Daniel
Raylene: Strand and June, Alicia and Wendell, Grace and Jon, Daniel with anyone.
Kent: It’s pretty easy to tell which characters are liked on this show based on the above responses. I really liked the John and Daniel and Alicia and Wendell ones. Time to get creative.
Alicia, Max, and Sarah because Alicia has spent time with almost all of the characters.
Strand and Rabbi and Annie could be a fun dynamic.
Wendell, June, and Janis so he has two white women to make him crazy.
Dwight and Charlie because from what I can see, Charlie is constantly learning from these adults.
John, Grace, and Dylan because Dylan has some potential.
Al, Wes, and Tess because Al needs to interview them and bore us. Wes also suffers the same fate as Wendell.
4. Why was Morgan the negotiator when everybody knew that Strand was the right man for that particular job? Why wasn’t part of the deal that you couldn’t split apart certain people, like John & June, Morgan & Grace, the 3 kids, Daniel & Charlie, and so on?
Bob: We had to learn how weak Morgan is as a leader, I guess. There were no negotiations because all Morgan wanted was Grace not being culled. (Yeah, I failed to understand how making Morgan appear so weak as a leader did anything for the show. I agree with you, it’s just that we have seen Morgan do so much. I’m shaking my head.)
Raylene: Strand would’ve called Ginny way sooner than Morgan did. I believe Morgan just wasn’t thinking when the deal was made. He probably thought they were going to fight to the death. (Morgan could very well have been considering it based on his reaction earlier in the season when Logan blocked off his and Al’s path.)
Kent: Because they feel that everything has to run through Morgan, which doesn’t make sense. Stop trying to make Morgan the new Rick. It doesn’t work that way. Really poor planning, plus Strand could have used the shine.
5. Once they had the moment of common sense, why didn’t they just radio to Virginia and tell her that they changed their minds? Seriously, you could tell that most of them thought it was a poor idea.
Bob: Because there was no real LEADER! No one is challenging Morgan because they feel bad for him and Grace. (Dwight is the only one who came close to challenging it, but he was too new to get any traction with his wisdom.)
Raylene: I think Ginny still would’ve came to screw with them even though they cleared it out. They still could have told her not to bother though. (Ginny was gonna come either way, but I think it would have made more sense for her to come and either impose her will to be more of a villain or bargain. Something different than this.)
Kent: Because in 2019, everybody is soft. That is my best response.
6. Why was Grace with the group on a horse if she was in such poor health? Also, thoughts on her being pregnant while still potentially having some radiation poisoning? Also, are we just supposed to forget about Alicia’s run-in with the radiation?
Bob: If they ever decide to kill off Alicia, she will be sacrificing herself because she has that poisoning. Grace on the horse was the worst idea ever. I don’t think Grace has severe poisoning. (I am guessing that Grace isn’t nearly as bad as she anticipated and either way, the story is convenient. Alicia’s sacrifice seems due at some point. The show no longer needs her if she isn’t going to be a strong leader.)
Raylene: I think Grace thought she was going to die soon so she decided to go horseback riding with Morgan and feel all good. Has Alicia even mentioned she was exposed I don’t think so I’m not sure if she is possibly putting everyone else at risk with containing them. (I am guessing that it is something that will just be forgotten. Maybe not. With the sloppy writing, I wouldn’t be surprised.)
Kent: Grace being out there put everybody at risk. It made zero sense other than a feel-good moment for her. Since Morgan is a bad leader, maybe he should have just stayed back and let Alicia or Wes go out instead. Oh, I forgot, painting took precedence. Also, I think that they won’t ever bring up Alicia’s exposure. It just makes sense to move on past that. I preferred the radiation threat stuff to Ginny.
7. Was it worth changing the plan because Luciana was with Ginny? Also, has Luciana changed in her thought process?
Bob: Absolutely not. This was so very foolish because Luciana is still needed! (The thing is, the actress seems like such a sweet person, and I want her to be successful, but Luciana’s character has been lame for most of her run. I hope that something improves for her.)
Raylene: Nope should’ve taken Ginny out. Luciana can handle herself or ran to a horse. (Yeah, it’s not like Luciana is beyond helpless. She’s done quite well despite terrible stories for her.)
Kent: The consensus is no across the board. I think Luciana has been treated very well, like Eugene was, in hopes that maybe she can coerce the group to relax a bit. Just my take, but since Fear seems to borrow every episode, why not?
8. Was the wedding that big of a deal compared to doing something….anything else?
Bob: *yawn* (Seriously, I just yawned. I am getting tired in all fairness, but your words compelled me.)
Raylene: Should’ve done more to prepare for Ginny. They could’ve had a shorter wedding. (Well, they clearly weren’t preparing for a fight, oh wait, they kinda were. This group can’t get on the same page and deserves to be separated.)
Kent: Prior to discovering that Luciana was with them, it felt like there was a plan. It didn’t seem like a peaceful one either. SO maybe, just maybe, you prepare for that instead of this wedding. Self-preservation isn’t something that they emphasize. Looking at you, Tom. Tom may end getting an award named after him after his ridiculous role.
9. In season 6, will we see a walker dressed and looking similar to Morgan to attempt to fake out the viewers into believing that Morgan is dead? Also, would you like to see Isabelle’s group tangle with Ginny’s group?
Bob: I would say we probably will. BTW, why does no one cover themselves with zombie guts anymore? (I’m glad that they brought that back in S10 Ep2 of TWD with Alpha and Lydia in the flashback. Was Nick the only one in Fear to do this? As a matter of fact, did Fear ever both to have the aha moment of scent attracting walkers? I feel like they breezed past that but the characters should have still had that moment.
Raylene: I don’t even remember who Isabelle’s group is hahaha. (The girl that like liked Al and is a member of the Black circle jerks group. Yeah. It’s not your fault, they failed to follow that story up with anything meaningful.)
Kent: I would be willing to bet Russell’s hairline on a fake Morgan lookalike showing up. And probably Morgan will be the one who kills fake Morgan. I would like to see Isabelle’s group take on Ginny’s group if it meant killing Ginny. I’m sorry, but she is just the worst. Not because of her character, which is awful. It may not even be the actress’ fault. But she may be worse than Tara. There, I said it.
Final Thoughts – I need 3 things. 1. The GMA nominee for this week’s episode. 2. What would you say was the GMA winner for season 5? 3. Give me your final thoughts on season 5 and where would you rank it among the 5 seasons?
Bob: 1. Stick versus gun at about 12 feet, stick wins. 2. Ladder over zombies. 3. 3rd best season, not overall impressed.
Raylene: Dwight trying to fight the walkers by the river come on now. I agree the ladders with the cars come on now. Last place I wasn’t impressed this season.
Kent: 1. This is tough because this episode was LOADED. Asde from the 2 that Bob and Raylene mentioned, I have two others. Dwight staying instead of bailing like he said that he was gonna do because he knows it’s a bad idea. They should have had Dwight leave. That would give you a whole other story in season 6 with Dwight finding Morgan after he’d been shot. But my favorite is that they make the call to Ginny, then decide that it wouldn’t take much to clear the place out. They couldn’t have spent 5 more minutes debating before making the call? It was obvious to everybody that they could clear out the gulch with zero problems. What did it take? Maybe 10 minutes? How F’N inane is that!! That’s my GMA nominee.
2. The bridge, every single stupid possible thing about the bridge. That truly irked me.
3. I know that my favorite season is #4 thanks to the first half, and I did enjoy Martha and Jimbo. My second favorite is probably the first season because it did a lot of important things and gave us Tobias. Things get muddled for me beyond that. Season 2 had the terrible first half on the ship but the solid second half at Abigail’s compound which was solid. Also, the second episode of season 2 had that really good one-off episode where they met that survivalist family. Season 3 had a promising first half on the farm or settlement with Otto and family. But the second half with the dam was not that great. Season 5 had a really decent first quarter, and the second quarter was okay. But a terrible second half.
Okay, final ratings.
1st/Best – Season 4
2nd – Season 2 now that I looked back
3rd – Season 1, lots of whiny drama with the Clarke family and Travis wasn’t a great leader yet.
4th – Season 5, lots of good characters and ideas destroyed by terrible writing. Daniel returned.
5th/Worst – Season 3 was mostly obnoxious. Otto was cool, but most of the stories failed to enthrall me and the dam was damn stupid. Madison was featured too much.