Season 5, Episode 13: Leave What You Don't
PLOT: Logan finds the oil field Morgan's team inherited from his former business partner, and so does a herd of zombies.
REVIEW: Fear the Walking Dead actually shocked me with the thirteenth episode of its fifth season, because this was one of the rare occasions where a Walking Dead show wrapped up a storyline in an episode that wasn't either a mid-season finale or a season finale. Of course, while resolving this storyline the show actually revealed that there's a lot more going on here than we knew about, but the fact that Logan (Matt Frewer) is no longer a threat to our heroes with three episodes remaining in the season is surprising to me anyway.
Another unexpected element of this episode was the amount of serious drama the Sarah character was given to handle. Played by Mad TV alum Mo Collins, Sarah has largely been a comic relief presence up to this point, but this episode allows her to display some depth, digging into the regret she feels over the things she did in the past. It's a bit awkward that she expresses this regret by basically saying the same thing twice in scenes that were very close together, but it's nice to see Sarah do something other than drop laugh lines. The laugh lines are present as well, though, and my favorite one included the phrase "poop chute". Leave What You Don't also reveals that, much like a superhero (especially if that superhero happens to be named Tony Stark), Sarah has created her own enemy through her past actions. We find out exactly what happened to Logan that caused him to lose the helpful, hopeful attitude he had at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, and Sarah is responsible for it.
The showdown between Logan and Sarah occurs at the oil field that Logan has been searching for this whole season, and even though the oil pump is hidden within a quarry it's tough to understand why Logan and his crew had so much trouble locating it. We're shown that the process of turning oil into gasoline requires a fire that sends a stream of black smoke into the air. This oil field was set up by Logan's former business partner, but instead of searching through his old buddy's stuff or the videos that have been shot by Althea (Maggie Grace), Logan could have just been looking for the source of the black smoke drifting into the sky.
Logan is a different sort of villain than we usually see on Walking Dead shows, there's a strong sense that this guy could be pulled over to the right side of the issue. If that were to happen, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Frewer as a regular cast member on this show. But as it turns out, I don't think we're going to be seeing him on Fear again. Logan is so ineffective as a bad guy, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that he's leaving the show before the end of the season.
The best thing about Leave What You Don't for me wasn't the insight we get into Logan's character or Sarah's seriousness, it was – as is often the case on this show – the spectacle of the zombie action. Logan finds the oil field, and so does a herd of zombies. The zombies just aren't clever enough to figure out where the entrance is. Instead, they come tumbling down into the quarry, some of them bursting like blood-filled water balloons when they hit the ground. Sharpshooter John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt) tries to pick off as many as he can before they fall in, but there are still a lot of zombies dropping into the quarry where characters like Logan, his lackeys, Sarah, Wendell (Daryl Mitchell), Luciana (Danay Garcia), Dwight (Austin Amelio), and the kids from the first half of the season are hanging out. It's a fun set-up.
I appreciate that Leave What You Don't brought the Logan standoff to an early conclusion. Then it brings in something new that I'm not quite sure of yet… And it's interesting that just a few episodes after Grace (Karen David) scoffed at the idea of riding horses in the zombie apocalypse, figuring that all of the horses that were around have become zombie chow, we're now introduced to a group that has Old West style and gets around on horseback. They want to take over the oil field so they can produce gasoline, so they don't seem to be entirely dedicated to this whole horse riding thing, but they still bring a bunch of horses into the final scenes of this episode.
The leader of this pack is Ginny, played by Colby Minifie, and I really don't get what she's up to. She says she and her group help people, that's why they need the oil, but in that case why do she and her pals have to behave like such violent, threatening dicks? It feels like the Walking Dead shows are running out of good excuses for people to fight each other. Why does there always have to be a "group vs. group" scenario in play? After the situation with Negan and his group of Saviors was dragged out and run into the ground on The Walking Dead, I can't help but roll my eyes every time another antagonistic group shows up on these shows. Ginny and her posse are going to have be fascinating to win me over, and I really don't see that happening. But that's an issue for future episodes.
Leave What You Don't I thought was a solid episode, right up until the moment Ginny arrived at the quarry. Then it ended on a troubling note, partly because I'm wary of Ginny and her group but also because it puts a pre-season 4 character's status on the show in jeopardy, and if you've read many of my Fear the Walking Dead episode write-ups you'll know that the pre-season 4 characters are the ones that are most important to me. We don't have any left to spare.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The zombies falling into the quarry get most of the attention, but there are a few zombies in here who are making themselves useful. Tricked into trying to reach for rodents in cages hanging in front of them, these zombies mindlessly walk in a circle, not even realizing that they're turning a wheel that helps with the oil pumping.
GORY GLORY: While the zombies that burst like balloons when they hit the ground are an awesome sight, my pick for the best gore effect comes when one of Logan's lackeys bashes a zombie's head in with a rifle butt.
FAVORITE SCENE: As Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Strand (Colman Domingo) rush to help a fellow survivor who's trapped in a situation just like one Logan couldn't rescue someone else from earlier in the apocalypse, Logan is in walkie talkie contact with the survivor, encouraging them to just give up. Then we find out whether or not history is going to repeat itself.
FINAL VERDICT: