Season 5, Episode 5: The End of Everything
PLOT: Althea gets to know someone from the group that took Rick Grimes away.
REVIEW: Here and there throughout the first four episodes of this season, Fear the Walking Dead has been teasing that it was going to give some information on the mysterious, helicopter-flying group that removed Rick Grimes from its companion series The Walking Dead. In the first episode, Althea (Maggie Grace) encountered a zombie that was wearing a riot gear-type uniform and had items in its pockets bearing the symbol that was on the side of the helicopter in The Walking Dead. Since then, we have seen a helicopter just like the one Rick rode off in, symbols and all. Along with the symbols, the items in the zombie's pockets also had the initials CRM on them, so the Walking Dead fan community has taken to calling this mystery group CRM, and I'll follow their lead in this write-up.
Althea was knocked out by another CRM soldier at the end of episode 1 and has been absent from the three episodes since. The End of Everything finally catches up to her, and in a big way: until the final minutes, the only living characters in this episode are Althea and the CRM soldier, who turns out to be a woman named Isabelle (played by Sydney Lemmon) when their helmet comes off. So here we have more than 40 minutes of nothing but Althea hanging out with a CRM soldier. How much do we learn about CRM during those 40 minutes? I'm sure most regular viewers of the Walking Dead shows could see this coming – we don't learn a whole lot.
While we wait for a minimum amount of information to be given out piece by piece, the episode does give us rock slide zombies, a rock climbing sequence (with zombies), Althea and Isabelle having a power struggle, and something of a love story. Despite only having two characters in it, it's not an uneventful episode. Just one that's not as informative as most viewers have been hoping it would be. I never would have thought that the first episode in which we get to know something about the group that took Rick (and in the timeline this is actually a prequel to his disappearance, because that won't happen for several more months) would involve an established character and a CRM soldier falling for each other.
This is one of the more unusual love stories I've seen, since Althea and Isabelle spend most of their time together making threats and pointing weapons at each other. I guess that's how some relationships work. The romantic aspect doesn't come out of nowhere, there are indications that they're warming up to each other, but it does seem laughable when Isabelle intensely reveals her feelings just seconds after holding a gun to Althea's head and then suddenly they're kissing. We want answers and they give us people making out with each other. The worst thing about it is that this reveals Isabelle to be an inept CRM soldier. We finally get to meet one of them, and it's the worst one they have. One who warns that other survivors should be afraid of anyone wearing a CRM uniform and apparently killed a friend (after some hesitation) over a breach of protocol, but goes soft and breaches protocol herself when she runs into a pretty girl with an attitude.
Isabelle shouldn't feel too bad about herself, though. When Althea decides to withhold information from her friends at the end, she proves to be just as lousy at working within a group.
The granddaughter of Jack Lemmon, Sydney Lemmon only has a few years of screen credits to her name so far, and she does a good job playing the oddly written Isabelle. The character could actually be a strong addition to the core cast if she were to leave CRM behind, as she obviously should. Grace and Lemmon carry the episode on their shoulders well enough that I wasn't feeling anxious to check in on the other characters.
So here's the gist of what we learn about CRM, making this the most SPOILERy thing you can hear about The End of Everything, since this was assumed to be the point: they're dangerous, they follow very strict rules, they execute their own members if those rules aren't followed, and they're focused on the future instead of the present or even themselves. What about a CRM base? "You don't want to go there." Yeah, we're going to have to wait for those Rick TV movies before we learn anything substantial.
I have a feeling that The End of Everything is going to be a "love it or hate it" episode for most Walking Dead fans. It will depend on whether or not the individual viewer is going to be able to buy into the drama of the Althea / Isabelle story, and if they're going to be disappointed that it doesn't tell us enough about CRM or if they'll just shrug and say, "Yeah, I figured they wouldn't tell us much." I thought it was a middle of the road episode that was saved from being a waste by the performances of Grace and Lemmon.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: To retrieve helicopter fuel, Althea and Isabelle have to do some rock climbing – and along the way have to pass a rope-secured rock climber who turned into a zombie before reaching the top.
GORY GLORY: There wasn't a lot of gore, but there were a couple nice smashed heads and some mangled zombie legs.
FAVORITE SCENE: While tied up in a vehicle, Althea calls out to a zombie that will have to walk through a barbed wire barricade to reach her so she can use that barbed wire to cut through the rope around her wrists. Then she uses the car door to crush the zombie's skull.
FINAL VERDICT: