Season 5, Episode 7: Still Standing
PLOT: Alicia tries to get the group of children to leave their treehouse base while the other characters work to get a plane repaired before a nuclear meltdown.
REVIEW: The characters of Morgan Jones (Lennie James), Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey), John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt), June (Jenna Elfman), Luciana (Danay Garcia), and Althea (Maggie Grace) crashed a plane while attempting a rescue mission in the first episode of Fear the Walking Dead's fifth season, ending up in the worst place they could have possibly landed in. Roads out have been wiped away by landslides, there's nuclear contamination in the area, some areas have been blocked off by roadblocks made of zombies tied together with their own guts, and there was a mysterious helicopter flying around… As episodes went on, it became clear that the showrunners didn't intend on getting the characters out of this situation until the mid-season finale, which will be episode 8. But when dividing a show up into half-season blocks like this, they should really entertain the idea that there's not enough story to sustain half a season. Maybe the characters could manage to fix their plane and fly out of this area a couple episodes before the mid-season finale. I don't think there's any viewer that would complain about the last episode or two before the mid-season break doing something different.
But showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, who took control of Fear the Walking Dead last season, obviously had no interest in getting the characters out of this mess early, no matter how much filler they had to drag the story out with. Episode 6 was nearly worthless and episode 7 isn't much better, as the show continues to spin its wheels trying to get eight episodes out of this scenario.
Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) have now joined the other characters in this tough spot, having crashed their hot air balloon while trying to bring the others the replacement parts they need to fix their plane and fly out of here. They now find themselves surrounded by zombies, because the show can't let them get those parts to the plane this soon. What's going on with them is just a way to kill time, others need to get some aviation fuel to kill time, and it turns out that John's decision to withhold information from new acquaintance Dwight (Austin Amelio, crossing over from The Walking Dead like Lennie James did) was also just a way to kill time.
Dwight has been searching for his ex-wife Sherry since the end of The Walking Dead season 8 and followed her from the Walking Dead setting of Washington D.C. down to Fear's current setting of Texas. While helping him in his search, John found a letter from Sherry in which she advised Dwight to stop following her for his own safety. John decided not to tell Dwight about that letter, and spends a while in this episode having a crisis of conscience over that decision before finally giving the letter to Dwight. That's a one episode turn-around, and a waste of time. Especially since Dwight takes the news like a champ. Now we need to place our bets on whether or not there's any chance Dwight and Sherry will be having a face-to-face by the end of this season.
Nuclear power plant employee Grace (Karen David) is around to notify everybody that another meltdown is imminent, otherwise these folks would probably take until the season finale to get out of the area instead of the mid-season finale.
Alicia has some business to attend to before the meltdown, and this is the most imporant part of the episode. She's out to convince the group of children headed up by siblings Annie (Bailey Gavulic), Max (Ethan Suess), and Dylan (Cooper Dodson) that they need to vacate the area as well, and she's so determined to reach these kids that she goes walking through a wilderness full of gut-wrapped zombies to do it. She eventually reaches their base, which happens to be a large treehouse that can only be reached by a bridge. It's a hell of a set-up.
I still don't have any attachment to these kid characters, but Alicia's mission to round them up does bring a whole lot of zombie killing into the episode. Including a moment of zombie killing that could be the lead-in to something terrible happening. There have been irradiated zombies lurking around throughout this half-season, characters have been warned about them repeatedly. Morgan gives that dire warning again at the start of this episode. And then the thing that has been warned against happens. If the show goes down the road of having the worst case scenario play out after this, I'm going to be very upset. But with Morgan giving the warning at the beginning of the episode this event happens in, they have to carry it out, don't they? My interest in this show will take a plunge if they do. It would mean removing another major character who has been around since the early days of the show, and Fear needs to hold on to every remaining pre-season 4 character they have.
Still Standing has some good moments of action and more than enough moments of spinning wheels. I'm going to be glad when we get through the mid-season finale and can move on to this show doing something different in the second half of the season.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Alicia assures the kids that she is a zombie-killing badass, and proceeds to prove it by single-handedly taking on a bunch of zombies that are advancing on their treehouse.
GORY GLORY: There are a lot of damaged zombie heads in this episode, but the biggest grossout comes when Alicia is attacked by a really messed-up zombie that has a dangling eyeball. She stabs it in the head and has trouble removing her weapon from its skull. When she does pull the weapon out, zombie blood splashes across her face.
FAVORITE SCENE: Any scene with Alicia killing zombies, whether it be in the woods at the beginning of the episode or at the treehouse near the end.
FINAL VERDICT: