Maddie immediately regrets her shenanigans with the hotel sign the night before, as do the rest of the hotel residents, as there is a horde of people from the neighboring town that want in and are pounding at the gates. It’s all pretty useless as they try to tell them to go away and no, they don’t have electricity (or ice or booze or feasts on fancy dinner plates) and they should just go find their own high rise luxury hotel amidst the dangers of shambling ghouls and violent narcos.
However, one face is familiar to Maddie in the crowd, the grizzled Travis. He fights his way to the gate and they let him in, smashing the knuckles of those trying to push their way in. It’s hard not to be upset at Maddie for her stupidity, when she has shown great leadership before, when it’s clear that Nick doesn’t want to be along for the ride, when we know that there’s at least places for these people to stay. Their reunion then is bittersweet, but mostly I was just stuck on how big an asshole Maddie is and how I hoped Chris was dead.
When we last left television’s least favorite sociopath and his bleeding heart father, they joined up with a few interchangeable dickheads and took shelter in a barn. When the man of the (farm) house, last surviving member of the family, tried to defend his home, Chris shot him in the face. Of course, the nameless man shot one of the dickheads during the standoff (Todd? Jake? James? James, yeah that’s it) and while he wasn’t fatally wounded, it still took some doing by Travis to make sure he wouldn’t bleed out.
Herein lies the dilemma of the zombie apocalypse. Travis cannot seem to get through to Chris to figure out what’s “wrong” with him when he doesn’t seem to care much that he’s racking up the kills at the tender age of sixteen. Perhaps it’s Travis’ fault for even trying to reach his son and not just chalking it up to him being a mentally ill creep. No amount of fatherly guidance is going to help there. Chris himself falsely believes that this hellscape of undeath is exactly the environment he needs to be in to flourish and truly be himself, not realizing he doesn’t possess the fortitude to actually survive or the empathy to negotiate with others, only the lack of emotion required to kill. Neither does he see that the band of merry dickheads are quick to run out of both supplies and loyalty.
Travis tries his best to stand in the way of the dickheads and stop them from killing Brandon, who isn’t healing as fast as they’d like, while still trying to prevent his son from joining the dark side (dick side?) AND digging a grave for the nameless farmer. There is a poignant moment where Travis searches the home for any identifying piece of information. Before finding the man’s wallet and license, he is absolutely surrounded by pictures and quite literally the entire history of this man’s family. A story spanning decades at least, perhaps centuries, finally cut short by a teenage piece of shit with a gun in his hand and a headful of bad ideas. There is a glimmer of hope when Chris sits down with him in the barn, explaining that he finally sees what his father was trying to teach him, that life still matters even now. Of course, this is just a ruse so the other two dickheads can barge in, hold Travis at gunpoint and execute James. Thoroughly defeated, the only thing left to do is carve a grave marker for the heretofore nameless farmer, Elias Juarez. Before they hit the road, he tries pleading with his son once more, pointing out that Chris and Elias both share a birthday. Chris uses his father’s wisdom against him, saying not to find too much meaning in coincidences. Fuckin’ millenials. And with that, Chris drives off to join Team Dickhead, heading for San Diego. All Travis can do, as the last man with a shred of morality or value for human life, is dig another grave for James. With that, he looks for the ocean, and found the lit up sign.
All this he tells to Maddie as they sit there and they have a moment where he spills his guts about his failure as a father and husband, how Chris’ anger had been a long time coming, and finally admitting to Maddie that he was wrong to not believe her or Alicia when they told him of Chris’ threats. It’s a powerful scene of someone good who tries to do good for his family, but misses the mark and sees how the consequences double and triple in size as time goes on. Especially in the place they’re in, the world they now inhabit, life is too short and often violently cut short and attention, affection, and love cannot wait. Maddie realizes the parallel between her and Travis, and her own relationship with her children, and rushes to go find Alicia.
She shares a very important secret with Alicia, a damaging one but also her reason for always chasing after Nick while seemingly ignoring her. It’s an apology and a reaffirmation of love and such a good scene that I was afraid they were going to ruin it with an arrow to someone’s eye. Then again, I think this is the leg up they have over TWD. Let’s face it, a lot of the dialogue is circular and samey at this point of TWD and I understand that they have to move the action along, but FTWD has featured little to no action in the past three or so episodes but they have been extremely compelling and very satisfying as far as character development goes. I really hope this is how it’s going to be from here on out because I really do care about these people. And while no one is safe, let’s hope the showrunners don’t just throw darts at the actor’s headshots and then shock us with sudden deaths when they think things are becoming a little too drama-heavy.
That being said, the episode ends with another cliffhanger. More refugees show up to the gates of the hotel. There are familiar faces in the crowd but one is noticeably absent...
Written by A Play On Nerds contributor, Jerry Herrera - Lover of horror, sci fi, and fantasy in that order. Semi-permanent Disneyland resident. I'm at least one of the droids you're looking for. Twitter: @FrankenJerry - Instagram: @GeraldoPedro