TV Show Review

TV Review: FEAR THE WALKING DEAD: Season 2, Episode 9: Los Muertos [AMC]

Frank Dillane Danay Garcia Fear the Walking Dead Los Muertos

AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead Los Muertos TV Show Review. Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 9: ‘Los Muertos,’ seemed to cement a Showrunners fascination with the Dia de los Muertos concept. Sure, it fits in nicely with the scary new world premise, South of the Border; but since one day does not a series make (outside 24), this episode staked its claim by just dropping the ‘Dia de’ (yeah, I saw what you did, there).

‘Los Muertos’ picked up where the last ep left off: with the Nick (Frank Dillane) waking up to the new sanctuary – complete with new mother hen, Luciana (Danay Garcia) – he had lucked his way into. Of course, any average fan of the genre knows that unfamiliar sanctuary always comes with a price; so the episode’s opening shocker really wasn’t all that shocking at all. That left a WTF moment – where the W stood for why, rather than what – that viewers still had to sit through the answer to, after having likely already guessed it. It did kinda take forever for that (familiar) answer to come, though, with commune snippets used to stretch the Nick’s subplot, even as it was interspersed with that of the Not-Nicks.

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What’s a Nick subplot without a few details to nick pick over. Where the opener was concerned, I don’t know what struck me as odder – the kid understanding the Gringo’s question, or the Gringo missing the mass gathering she was looking at. There was also the sticking point about the selection being delivered live; but I guess it wouldn’t be a noble sacrifice if the selected took the easy way out. Blood cammo doesn’t seem to hold up as much as I figured (having never tried it, m’self); but I guess it wouldn’t, once it became a series detail we could take for granted. I hate to be ‘that guy’ (euphemism for ‘realist,’ in this case, I guess), but I did wonder if the commune’s arrangement, with the outside gangs, was too important for rape to be an issue for someone like Luciana. As much as I didn’t want Luciana playing the mother hen role (that grocery aisle scene, man), Nick just has to keep proving he needs one (seriously – that grocery run outcome). Nick proved his worth with a junkie level pharmaceutical know-how (and aww-sweet motives) – great, mother hen has to keep him, now. If only the original mother-hen was as positive a plot driver.

On the other side, of the great mid-season divide, I didn’t envy Strand (Colman Domingo) having to drive the Misses Daisy around (he’s gay – the eye candy company component’s a total wash, in this case). Making matters worse: it seems that Maddy (Kim Dickens) had been back-seat/ truck-bed driving this whole time – wasting time & resources looking for missing cast-mates, while Abigail still sat offshore.

Well, Abigail did, up to some point; so points to Strand for not promptly kicking Maddy off the shore bluff. Swift kicks, to Maddy’s pants, was Alicia’s (Alycia Debnam-Carey) job, and a good use of her needling talents (finally).

As if to contrast Nick’s crowded commune situation, the Not-Nicks went for an abandoned hotel. Immediately defaulting to ‘Ugly American’ would be amusing, under genre circumstances (another standard set by Zombieland), were it not also pretty stupid; so I’d say they went about it pretty stupid. Seriously stupid. Like, in no way funny/ ironic kinda stupid. Nothing like unforced errors to scare up some action, when nothing is happening.

To be fair, the episode did introduce something new to the mix – a new character detail that could be a Eugene sized plot device, going forward; but, so far, every indication has been one of ‘going forward as usual.’

I don’t know if it’s a Catholic thing, a Third World thing, or if the Showrunners put too much stock in Dia de los Muertos, but the whole ‘bienvenidos Mexico’ angle has taken on a running theme of denial ideology – one case of taking safety-in-shared-delusion, as safety-in-numbers, after another.

Where Human instinct meets hubris provides at least as much of the genre’s fear & loathing as the undead, so I can appreciate the need to keep this formula going. No formula should be this noticeably recycled, however; and if questions, about what lies ahead, come with the next crazy commune scenario as the answer (as a chaser to a prescribed amount of unforced errors), then why should I care to look ahead?

Not the kind of question a show needs to be asked.

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Sam Joseph

Sam is an Avid consumer/observer of Geek culture, and collector of Fanboy media from earliest memory. Armchair sociologist and futurist. Honest critic with satirical if not absurdist­­ wit with some experience in comics/ animation production.
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