TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 2, Episode 10)

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Season 2, Episode 10: Do Not Disturb

PLOT: Travis and Chris traverse the countryside while Alicia fights to reach her companions in a hotel full of walkers.

REVIEW: When the previous episode of Fear the Walking Dead ended with a handful of the show's characters in a dire situation, trapped in a hotel and surrounded by zombies, it got my hopes up that this week's episode would be packed with exciting zombie action. But, being familiar with the show I'm watching, I knew to temper my expectations. The preview for Do Not Disturb did give glimpses of zombie action, but mixed in with that were shots of Travis (Cliff Curtis) and his son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie), characters we haven't caught up with since they split off in their own direction in the mid-season finale. So I assumed that even if the episode did feature some exciting zombie action, it would also, in true Fear fashion, buzzkill that excitement with somber cutaways to Travis and Chris.

Even with tempered expectations, the first half of this episode was less exciting than I anticipated. We left Madison (Kim Dickens) and Strand (Colman Domingo) in a room packed with zombies, but we don't get to see what happened in that room. Instead, we follow Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) through the hotel situation, and she starts off holed up in a safe room, waiting for her chance to spring into action. Meanwhile, the Travis and Chris cutaways are the primary focus – chats around a campfire, Chris receiving a driving lesson. I don't care whether this kid lives or dies, let alone whether or not he can drive on an empty road.

However, as the episode went along the Travis and Chris plotline began to become more interesting than I thought it would be. The father and son meet up with a trio of fellow Americans, some young dude-bros for Chris to bond with, and their shared journey takes them to a very dark place. Travis left the others in hopes of salvaging the humanity left in his son, but it continues to look like Chris might become this series' first great villain. If Travis doesn't perform a mercy killing by the end of the season.

This new group that Travis and Chris fell in with – Brandon, Derek, and Baby James – were an intriguing enough bunch, and at first I was suspicious of them. I was in The Walking Dead mode, not trusting outsiders – it had momentarily lapsed from my mind that it's the main characters on Fear the Walking Dead who are always the cause of trouble. Others should be wary of them, not vice versa.

Once that story was properly rolling, the hotel zombie action finally got going, with Alicia wading through the horde in search of her mother, Strand, and Ofelia (Mercedes Mason), and in the process meeting another new character: Karen Bethzabe as hotel employee Elena. Not only does Elena prove adept at handling the dead, she is also a person to beware of – she locked an entire wedding party in a ballroom once zombies showed up on the scene, sacrificing a lot of lives in an effort to keep the outbreak contained. If she is made a series regular, she's going to fit right in with our other "heroes".

There wasn't as much action as I would have hoped, but what was there had some impressive elements to it, both in terms of spectacle and also how Alicia is stepping up to be a badass. If she continues down this path, she could surpass Nick (Frank Dillane) as Fear's golden child.

Do Not Disturb wasn't the action fest I wanted, but it wasn't the downer I expected. With some excitement mixed with some interesting (and disturbing) twists and turns, this was definitely the best episode since the show returned to the air to finish out the second season.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There are two contenders for this category, and they're both in the running for Favorite Scene as well. For Best Zombie Moment, I'll go with the scene that shows the zombies as more of a threat – the one in which Alicia finds herself trapped on a hotel balcony, far above the ground, nothing keeping a room full of zombies from reaching her but a sliding glass door that is cracking from the weight of the horde pressing against it. That's a nightmare worthy scenario.

GORY GLORY: There's plenty of head stabbings and a hell of a headshot in this episode, but I'll give the best gore moment to the wedding flashback. Sissy Spacek's daughter Schuyler Fisk shows up just long enough to get her face ripped open.

FAVORITE SCENE: With walkers closing in on Alicia in a hallway, she has to pry open the elevator doors and jump into the shaft, catching onto the cable. As she hangs there, the zombies continue advancing on her – and go tumbling down the shaft. It's a wonderful "dumb dead" moment.

FINAL VERDICT: