Season 5, Episode 14: Today and Tomorrow
PLOT: Morgan and Althea infiltrate a condo complex occupied by Ginny's people while Grace and Daniel run out of gas.
REVIEW: The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead are basically soap operas that happen to have zombies in them. Sometimes we can be distracted from this fact by the action, gore, and confrontations between groups of humans… and sometimes there are episodes like Today and Tomorrow, where the soap opera aspect is quite apparent. The episode does have its share of zombies, action, and people with opposing agendas, but at its core it's all about characters seeking love and emotional connections in the post-apocalypse.
A few episodes back, it became clear that Morgan (Lennie James) would like to pursue a relationship with Grace (Karen David), but he buried his emotions and went off on a supply-distributing mission with Althea (Maggie Grace) because he's still hurting too much over the loss of his wife and son to open himself up to being with a woman who probably only has a short time left, since it's believed that Grace has radiation poisoning. Meanwhile Althea has a troubled heart herself because a woman she fell for flew out of her life in a helicopter – a helicopter just like the one that carried Rick Grimes away on The Walking Dead. Morgan and Althea are forced to admit these matters of the heart when they find out the group of equestrians led by Ginny (Colby Minifie), questionable characters we were introduced to in the previous episode, have taken over a condo complex and are forcing the former HOA prez's sister to stay there with them.
Morgan and Althea sneak into the complex not just to rescue the man's sister, but also so Althea can find out whether or not Ginny's group is associated with her potential girlfriend's community.
Meanwhile Grace and Daniel (Ruben Blades) – accompanied by Daniel's cat Skidmark – are off bonding on a mission of their own. Although Morgan is pushing Grace away because of her ailment, she's still the character on this show who does the most smiling and laughing and she's allowing herself to look forward to the future. Daniel had no one but Skidmark for a while, but now he's an active member of a group, making friends and taking young Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) under his wing. It's a good thing Daniel is in this episode, or else Today and Tomorrow would have been another episode that annoyed me by not including a character that has been on the show since before the new showrunners took over in season 4. Regardless of whether or not I like Morgan, Althea, or Grace, I need that connection to the pre-4 era of the show. Daniel has been coming and going since the beginning and he's one of my favorite characters who has ever been on Fear, so his presence in this episode was very welcome.
Not only is Daniel present and adding some fun into the mix by giving a haul of vinyl records top priority on their supply run, but the guy also gets to show off his singing abilities. In addition to being an actor and a politician, Ruben Blades is also a musician, so I knew he could do some singing, but I certainly never expected Daniel to sing a duet with Grace, who also proves to have some singing skills. It's surprising and a bit cheesy, but Fear the Walking Dead is a soap opera, so I wasn't put off by Daniel and Grace's musical interlude.
Zombies are destroyed; a condo complex surrounded by armed guards is infiltrated; there are tense exchanges between Morgan, Althea, and Ginny; Daniel and Grace play a tune. There is plenty going on in Today and Tomorrow, but it's all built around the question of, "Can Morgan move on from his past and embrace his feelings for Grace?" And the secondary question of, "How much time does Morgan have to pull his head out of his ass before Grace passes away?"
This is an episode where the soap opera of it all distracts from the action, but I thought it was a fine way to spend 45 minutes. I find Ginny and her group to be pretty underwhelming, but I do care about some of these characters and would like to see Morgan and Grace have some happiness before she has to go.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: When Morgan and Althea run into some zombie trouble at the condo complex, Althea ends up tumbling into the swimming pool with the flesh-eater. Fighting off the zombie while underwater proves to be quite a challenge.
GORY GLORY: Some zombies get the standard head bashing and spearing in this episode. One of them gets dispatched by a guard at the condo complex, who tries to drag the body away by one of its arms. The zombie is too decomposed for that and its arm pops off.
FAVORITE SCENE: Early in the episode Morgan and Althea dive into a van to hide from some of Ginny's riders. The men on horseback are presented as being such a threat that a shot of a horse breathing on a van window while our heroes cower inside the vehicle reminded me of a dinosaur in a JURASSIC PARK movie.