Fear the Walking Dead, Season 2

[uncfan888]

I watched the first season, and the first two episodes.. But I think I may be done. The people on this show are all idiots except for strand.

[lightsout]

This show is just.....ugh. Skip this post if you're not caught up.

I want to like it. I do. And I do at times. However, as some have said, the stupid is killing me. Just a lot of bad choices. The second you find out that daddy has poison pills and you know the wife is already pretty insistent on saving the two youngest, you know you have two options: pull up anchor and get out of dodge, or go in with guns, TAKE the kids, pull up anchor and get out of dodge. Instead, they went all lukewarm and decided to go in and try to reason the dad into it, then one of the kids dies from stupid. Then mommy dies from stupid. THEN, you allow an idiot to come onto the boat and take the kid off. Which, from a writing perspective, was an odd choice. I'm guessing it was solely to have that closing shot.

But let's back up to Dumb Girl A giving a pretty good approximation of their location at sea over a radio to some stranger because she hasn't learned from the National Guard that you can't trust people, apparently. 

This brings me to the Good Guy Dad who wants to do the "right thing" and simultaneously do NOTHING AT ALL when it comes down to crunch time...and when he DOES do something, it's the exact opposite of what he SHOULD have done (example: the soldier situation in the finale of last season).

Let's not mention the teen angst morons that continue to try to get themselves killed.

Daniel knows what's up. Can't hate on the guy.

Strand knows what's up, but he's also very shady.

[TheRed]

This show is just dull, and boring. I actually like some of the actors in this, but they aren't given poo to work with really.

Also, as others have mentioned, the show just conveniently randomly skipping to the whole city in flames behind them was a massive missed opportunity.

Hate to say it, but after watching this crap, and the last Walking Dead finale, it's probably for the best that all this Dead stuff ends sooner rather than later. It's just a cash cow right now, nothing more. Substance? Yeah, good luck with that.

[Hotsauce]

I'll pretty much echo what everyone else has said. 

To me, Everything about Fear, feels like what a "Zombie" show would be like if ABC or The CW made it. The writing, the plot, the acting, just the overall feel and impression of the show...

Last season had its moments early on, but this season is especially bad.

Fear the Walking Dead is basically the "Speed 2: Cruise Control" (also takes place on a boat) of AMC's the Walking Dead. 

[Jangler]

[cookinbrak]

Honestly, I'd rather watch reruns of the first seasons of TWD.....

The only good thing is the rules that Strand comes up with. Especially number 3.

[Bronn]

FWIW I am actually enjoying FTWD a bit more than most of you, it seems.

Strand is obviously the most interesting character. Nick maybe second, with the old guy in third. They haven't really shown much of those guys' cards yet.

This show is a lot more slow burn than TWD, which is good to me, because TWD utilizes filler whereas FTWD seems to utilize a little more development.

Obviously, I don't have any source material for this show, so everything is new to me as I see it. That is a bit of a draw for me.

I can understand the hate for the time jump. It doesn't bother me though. I think it has been played out tbqh, as far as the rapid downfall of society in a zombie apocalypse.

 

Basically, this far in, this show is seeking to answer the "I'd just get on a boat" crowd as far as zombie apocalypse scenarios go.

As for Strand, I don't think he is as nefarious as a character as they are representing right now. I'm rolling the dice that he will be some kind of insider, who knew this was coming, and he is a part of a greater plan to rebuild society afterwards with the people he can selectively choose. He chose Nick in the holding pen, and the rest of the crew is just a side effect to that choice, and baggage to him at this point. He'll have to have some Morgan moments in which he'll see the humanity in the others moving forward, and he'll likely soften towards some of the "we need to save these people" thoughts. I could be way off, but I am just guessing here.

I enjoy the show. It will have to take a back seat to GoT starting this week though... but I will keep watching.

[Goondal]

1 hour ago, Bronn said:

FWIW I am actually enjoying FTWD a bit more than most of you, it seems.

Strand is obviously the most interesting character. Nick maybe second, with the old guy in third. They haven't really shown much of those guys' cards yet.

This show is a lot more slow burn than TWD, which is good to me, because TWD utilizes filler whereas FTWD seems to utilize a little more development.

Obviously, I don't have any source material for this show, so everything is new to me as I see it. That is a bit of a draw for me.

I can understand the hate for the time jump. It doesn't bother me though. I think it has been played out tbqh, as far as the rapid downfall of society in a zombie apocalypse.

 

Basically, this far in, this show is seeking to answer the "I'd just get on a boat" crowd as far as zombie apocalypse scenarios go.

As for Strand, I don't think he is as nefarious as a character as they are representing right now. I'm rolling the dice that he will be some kind of insider, who knew this was coming, and he is a part of a greater plan to rebuild society afterwards with the people he can selectively choose. He chose Nick in the holding pen, and the rest of the crew is just a side effect to that choice, and baggage to him at this point. He'll have to have some Morgan moments in which he'll see the humanity in the others moving forward, and he'll likely soften towards some of the "we need to save these people" thoughts. I could be way off, but I am just guessing here.

I enjoy the show. It will have to take a back seat to GoT starting this week though... but I will keep watching.

I agree, I do not agree with the hate for this show, although I have a few opinions on where it comes from:

1) As you mentioned, tt is a different type of show with the slow burn and all
2) Again, as you mentioned, the lack of source material.  There are two types of followers of TWD, comic readers and non-comic readers.  From the people I know the comic readers seem to be more upset with the show than others.  Comic readers also seems to watch the show waiting to see their personal favorite parts.  They do not have that here.
3) Different characters.  With TWD there are fan favorites that have been developed over 4, 5, and even six years.  We do not have those attachments yet.
4) It is earlier in the outbreak so we know so much more than the characters do.  Even at the beginning of TWD, they were further along in the outbreak than these characters are now.  We get frustrated with things that they do but most of these characters are very naive about the new rules, not because they are neccessarily stupid, but because they have not learned them yet.  Until this past episode when it was revealed that the entire west coast was taken out they probably believed that there was help out there somewhere.

I will say that at the moment I am enjoying this show more.  Now the first three or so seasons of TWD were far superior but a lot of the characters that I found interesting back then have been killed off and the replacements have really done nothing for me.  Even when there are interesting things they ruin it with cheap tricks like the dumpster and the finale.  

Carol is my favorite character and I have always liked Daryl and Michonne but they have been less interesting of late.  Meanwhile Strand and Daniel are more interesting to me than anybody on the parent show at the present moment and while the others have yet to spark interest it is still too early in their development to consider them a lost cause.  Nick is already showing growth this year, he was an annoying pain in the ass last year and I wanted him dead.

[Datawire]

Yep, my channel got stuck on the CW.

[Zaximus]

For those of you saying they are stupid, are you still fans of TWD and do you say the same thing?  Those people are 50 times more stupid than these people.  Also, let's keep this into perspective, they are only a couple weeks into this thing, yet TWD people are YEARS in and still doing the same stuff.

I like this, better than TWD a lot of times.  Probably because they aren't gutting source material like the other show, I'm not sure.

I actually think this crew is better.  They ALL have learned to kill zombies already and got over that.  It took TWD crew months/years to get over that.   The choices aren't the best but that will come after months of living in this world.

I think Strand was a drug runner or something actually, but we'll see.

[Darth Biscuit]

11 hours ago, Zaximus said:

For those of you saying they are stupid, are you still fans of TWD and do you say the same thing?  Those people are 50 times more stupid than these people.  Also, let's keep this into perspective, they are only a couple weeks into this thing, yet TWD people are YEARS in and still doing the same stuff.

I like this, better than TWD a lot of times.  Probably because they aren't gutting source material like the other show, I'm not sure.

I actually think this crew is better.  They ALL have learned to kill zombies already and got over that.  It took TWD crew months/years to get over that.   The choices aren't the best but that will come after months of living in this world.

I think Strand was a drug runner or something actually, but we'll see.

I agree... the stupid on TWD has reached astounding levels at times.  This was a better episode than the previous two this season, but to me, the stupid character thing is really a slap in the face of the viewers...  I get a certain amount of uncertainty with the characters, but blatant stupid things (two instances in this episode is Travis losing his regulator when he first sees the Zombie under the boat and then Nic and his sister taking time to hug on the shore prior to putting the boat in the water).  Just dumb things that they are trying to manufacture a reaction in the audience and it's insulting.  TWD has been worse about it, i agree... kind of like the "everyone forgot how to drive" plot device.   These shows are certainly not the only TV shows and movies guilty of it...  

 

On the bright side, Nick learned the zombie guts trick...  and the crab zombie was really cool.

[Zaximus]

Imagine a zombie show where it wasn't complete morons.   HBO really should have taken on TWD when they had the chance.

[Goondal]

That was definitely my favorite episode so far.  I am really liking seeing these characters develop and feel that there is a lot more potential here than a lot of people seem to.  

I liked seeing the kids step up and not want to "be at the kid's table."  They seem to be accepting this new world and realizing that they are going to have to get their hands dirty to survive.  Perhaps they will add to the show unlike most teenagers on TV.  Chris was stupid for running off and that hug came at a dumb time though.

Daniel is my favorite still.  I like how he got Madison to confront Strand and also noticed he seemed to be affected by the fact that he almost failed to protect the kids.  Maybe he will grow to care about more than just himself and his daughter (who has yet to add anything to the show).

Strand stranding (haha) Alex and the kid in the ocean was damn cold. I hope they turn back though, and imagine that they will.  She seems useful and it would be incredibly stupid if they spent all that time building her up in those webisodes to give her ten minutes of screentime and then cut bait.  I could do without another kid though.

The power struggle within this group is going to be very interesting.  I do not think that it will be like TWD where Rick has usually been in command.

[Proudiddy]

Yeah, they're still doing stupid stuff, but that was possibly the best episode yet, outside of the break into the military camp and the subsequent break out.  A lot of inexplicable things, (travis reads a boat manual for 10 secs and is suddenly a mechanic, plane crash - "let's go ashore even though there's probably walkers everywhere").  But, it's picking up...

Also, on TTD, Chris Jericho made an interesting point.  I know some of us debated the stupidity of the characters last season and the argument hinged on "they don't know what zombies are in this world," which I thought was really unbelievable, because if that's the case, it would be an alternate universe, because everyone in our reality has heard of the concept.  But, Jericho basically said, in their world, they're still operating off conventional social norms.  They don't completely understand their actions and the consequences in this new social structure.  His example was the mercy kill on the spine injury guy...  in Chris' mind, he still doesn't know the consequences and what has this done to him.  If you were him, you'd walk out of that wreckage thinking you've got to hide or a cop will show up and arrest you for murder.  But, they're having to adjust to this new social order...  and he said they still don't fully comprehend EVERYTHING has collapsed.

That explanation did a lot for me in regards to the characters naivete and seemingly stupid actions at times.  That being said, the daughter was an absolute idiot with the radio thing in the season premiere, and there's no caveat for that.

One more point - I was telling my wife, the interesting thing about this show, and I havent figured out if it was good or bad yet, is that there soesn't appear to be one sole protagonist.  Because of that, there is a lot of different things the writers can play with from character to character.  Again, I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.  Are they purposely drawing it out to have a main character step forward, or had they not fully fleshed that stuff out and now are trying to develop them all at once?  It could make for an interesting dynamic going forward...