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Fear the Walking Dead 4.03 Review – ‘Good Out Here’
Loading...This week on Fear the Walking Dead, wow, I did not see that coming.
The plot: In the past, Nick burns his infected crops and decides to go back out into the field with his mother so he feels like he’s contributing. Mel tosses the book Luciana left for Charlie back at him. claiming she doesn’t like kid stories, but Madison assures him they’ll get Charlie back. They then proceed to get scooped on every site they go to because the Vultures keep getting there first. They find Mel’s brother Ennis at one, with Charlie who still has a walkie-talkie tuned to their channel. She leaves with the Vulture despite the Clarks trying to win her over. Madison tells Nick that what keeps her coming out here is looking for something good; in the end they find a field of blue bonnets, which he lays down in. In the present, the SWAT van goes of the road when there’s a scuffle between Althea and Nick. The group except for Morgan and Nick go find a tow truck, and eventually Victor and Alicia agree to tell their story in exchange for Alathea driving them directly to the place she found the banner. Nick and Morgan hide from a blue El Camino that cruises by, and Nick is out of his mind to go after it, setting off a horn that draws walkers to the van. Morgan follows, and as they look for a place to hole up and wait, Morgan eventually tells him about how he wa in a dark place he couldn’t get out of until someone helped him. He gives Nick the copy of “The Art of Peace” after Nick finally finds Ennis and attacks him, killing him rather viciously on an antlered deer head. Just as the others find them, Nick is shot by Charlie, who looks shocked at what she’s done but runs away. Nick Clark dies of a gunshot wound surrounded by his sister, Luciana, and Victor Strand.
As this episode went on, I was becoming more and more convinced that Madison is going to be revealed to be dead in the present–maybe not in this episode, but eventually. I’m still suspecting that may happen, considering that we don’t know where she is, and something certainly caused Nick’s apocalyptic rage at the Vultures. But I definitely did not see Nick’s death coming at all! That was a total shock. Looking back, I can see some hints that were laid, but I also think they did some intentional misdirection with dropping hints about Madison instead.
The biggest one, of course, is what Nick says to his mother about why he doesn’t like going outside the stadium anymore.
You try to do the right thing, you end up doing the worst. That’s why I stayed inside so long. It’s not because of what’s out here, it’s because of what being out here does to you. Being out here makes me feel more trapped than being in there. Like who I’ll be is just closing in on me, just suffocating me.
In past seasons, we’ve seen Nick has had a affinity for the dead that’s frankly unsettling. He would practically looks for excuses to cover himself in guts and for a time he even actively chose to walk among them rather than be with the living. He’s not been a violent person before now, but he has been a highly unusual one, even disturbed at times. When he talks about his fate being sealed, it seems like he’s talking about the violence and anger, but what he really means is being dead, even if he doesn’t know it. Nick is someone who’s courted death for a significant portion of his life, and in the “Then” flashbacks of the stadium living, he looks to have finally found a way to embrace life, but only by staying away from the world outside. Even when he lays down in the field of blue bonnet flowers, he looks uneasy before he closes his eyes and looks peaceful. On a technical note, I loved the contrast of those last two shots: dead with his open versus alive with his eyes closed.
While this being his fate is fitting, though, it’s also sad. He was shot by someone he wanted very much to help, even if his fixation on that was unexplained. It’s shocking and painful and certainly not something he was ready for. He leaves behind his sister and Luciana, and maybe his mother, that’s still unclear, both of whom have lost so many loved ones already. More than that, though, I wonder about the placement of this death in the story. It doesn’t feel like Nick’s arc was complete. It seemed maybe Morgan was going to get somewhere with him, help him get past his anger. We’d been given a peek into the PTSD he was dealing with in the wake of last season. Hell, we never been got to see him really deal with losing Troy or how his mother murdered him. In life we don’t all get to finish our arcs, so to speak, or be ready for death when it comes. But this is a show, where the priority is telling a good, compelling, and complete story. So, while I applaud the show managing to surprise me, I’m not sure it was a great move narratively.
On a side note to this plot, Charlie We’ve had multiple indications of where Charlie’s loyalties lie, with Mel and his brother, Ennis, both stating that she’s one of them, they found her, and pointing out her talent for finding ‘the good stuff’. Nonetheless, Charlie keeps coming across as being torn but perhaps afraid to leave the Vultures. I mean, she’s only eleven or so, and that’s important to remember. She’s subject to the manipulations of the older and more experienced people around her, and she’s ended up with some bad people. Still, why did she shoot Nick at all? What I’m getting at is I hope we find out more about her soon.
Nick’s death also shortchanges Morgan’s development in this episode, but the relationship between the others progresses. Strand makes the point that all negotiations require an act of faith, and both sides end up making one. I’m not sure why Strand and the others are so against telling Althea their stories, beyond being grumpy about their initial interactions. But Strand in particular seems to have caught onto there being something more going on with Althea’s crusade to journal everything, and her panic when she sees her tape storage area is unlocked supports this. But I’m scratching my head to figure out what could be so nefarious about what she’s doing. It’s not like she’s going to sell this stuff to TMZ, you know? We see that one set is labeled “The Bog 17-24,” which I assume will become clear later on.
We don’t learn a whole lot more about what makes the Vultures so terrible tonight. Nick is furious with that one guy, enough to kill him rather violently and with no regret to speak of. They don’t stop Madison and Nick from going out to scavenge, though they do use the opportunity to get to the supplies first. It’s a dick move, but they could do worse. Fittingly, they do seem to be dicks; both Mel and Ennis act like it in this episode. But they seem so…annoying but toothless so far. I trust they’ll take a turn eventually, but I’m not sure yet what that will look like.
I’m going to be increasingly interested to see what’s happened to Madison. If we hadn’t just lost Nick, I would highly suspect there was a reveal of Madison’s death coming. She’s MIA in the present, she was acting optimistic in the past and, dare I say, even like a moral compass, and we know how dangerous that is! But with him gone, it feels less likely. I get the feeling that either way, we may need to wait a while to know for certain. But one thing is for certain: anyone who stops to look at the pretty flowers is probably marked for death!
