re: Fear of the Walking Dead Ep. 5 discussion thread

Maybe I'm wrong, but my take on the whole "missing 9 days of action thing" is that, from our protagonist's points of view, there was NO action.

Right before the military showed up, a couple of zombies had been spotted in the neighborhood and it looked like things were about to go real bad but then BAM there's the military and they fenced everyone off and kept the real crisis from reaching their little fenced off safe zone.

So, for our group - there was no action those 9 days - they are in a bubble of false security and for people like Travis, this is just an inconvenience until things get back to normal. People like Daniel know this is the beginning of the end, but most of them don't know things are about to change forever.

Now that the areas of the city not fenced off are falling and the military is getting the frick out of dodge, NOW is when our group will experience the descent in to zombie chaos.

I think a lot of bad things have happened in those 9 days but our group was sheltered from it.

I'm glad they yada yadaed those 9 days - can y'all imagine three episodes of Travis and Maddie looking for flashlights, Ophelia making out with the soldier, Alicia and Chris looting houses, Liza looking after Griselda, Daniel making vague declarations of doom, and all of them just milling around and lining up for supplies from the national guard?

That shite would have been worse than Herschel's farm.

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Me too! It seems like they are heading that way, but AGAIN, they SKIP over the important things. Like this episode, now the military is pulling out? WHY? They haven't really shown crap hit the fan yet, so why they buggin out?

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Okay, this is my beef too. It is reasonable that the military would come in, establish safe zones, and then go in street by street and clear out neighborhoods that are infected. The problem is that is what we all wanted to see and they didn't give it to us. They alluded to it, they showed soldiers out on some patrols on empty streets, they showed them shooting one zombie (the segment with Travis and the .50 cal), they showed the locked arena (it appears it was another safe zone or evac point where all hell broke loose and they just locked everyone in there, living and dead), but they did not give us any action of the events leading up to where we are now.

From our perspective the streets are relatively clear, why would the military need to pull out? All we've seen is one zombie chick at the donut shop and soldiers trying to clear a building. Big deal, Rick Grimes and Co. handle that crap with their bare hands. You know what would cause the military to freak and pull out? A zombie horde moving through the streets. An "Oh Shite!" moment. We got none of that. What we wanted to see was the chaos leading up to where we are now. Instead we are like the characters, not knowing what the heck is going on. The difference is, we as viewers know what will happen next, what the world will descend into, our characters don't.

I didn't think last night's episode was too great to be honest.

I hated (HATED) the whole "super smooth, cool black guy salesman in the cage" thing more than most I assume. I realize why it was there, but I thought it was stupid.

Daniel kidnapping and torturing the soldier was a little odd too. Felt out of place. I know Daniel is a character who seems to "get it" the most, but that seemed overly dramatic. I did wonder if Ofelia was in on it the whole time though. Originally I thought she was playing that soldier for medicine, but now it appears that she actually loves him. So I'm wondering if she faked the outrage and lured him to her house knowing that her dad would "question" him for information, or if Daniel just took that chance when it presented itself.

I hated the "kids wrecking the rich house and playing dress up" thing too. It just felt weird and out of place that all of a sudden these two kids get along that well. I guess it was just "kids being kids/bored" or whatever. But it's just aggravating that there is only one episode left and we're getting this kind of screen time IMO.

And I know Travis "doesn't like guns" or whatever, but how the hell can you pass up taking that shot with the .50 cal rifle? That would've been awesome as shite.

I didn't really understand the part where the soldiers went in that building and came out dead/injured and wanting to GTFO and go home. What the hell happened? If it was walkers, they should've been able to handle those easily with the weaponry they have. And we've already heard people say head trauma is what kills the infected, so surely the soldiers know that as well (and we've seen them shoot a walker in the head as well). So was it humans..??


All in all, this show isn't at all what I expected it to be. And maybe that's my fault. I do like the show well enough, but I think I need to temper my expectations a bit. If this is purely a reboot of TWD just in a different part of the country, I'm not sure how long I'll stick with it. I already have TWD to watch, and don't need another clone of that. However, if we can actually get a different view on the ZA, I could get into that, at least for a little while. I don't know, I'm torn because I do like the show but it's been pretty disappointing so far (and I thought it started off great the first couple episodes).

I also notice these threads getting shorter and shorter as well.

Is it wrong that I wanted to see Travis pull the trigger on that .50 cal with his eye pressed up against the scope?

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Is it wrong that I wanted to see Travis pull the trigger on that .50 cal with his eye pressed up against the scope?

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A question for some of the firearms exports we have here. When that .50 cal round hit that walker's head it snapped her head back and she dropped. If a round that big hit her head wouldn't it just have blew her head off, like an exploding pumpkin or watermelon?

It's pretty obvious what his motivation for going there was.

He was trying to confirm if the soldier was telling the truth about Cobalt and other details shared.

Now he can go back knowing that he is telling the truth, kill him and move forward with a plan to get out safely or take down who he needs to take down.

I thought it was a pretty good episode. We are starting to see the breakdown in the military, and in 'civility' with the torture of the soldier. I think it's becoming obvious that the military was full of shite with the 'clear for 6 miles' talk and they are barely hanging on.

I'm curious about the arena.

Were the zombies herded into there somehow or was there an outbreak during an event there and the building was just chained closed?

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Interesting that the soldiers/national guard intended to eliminate the civilians (was the word he used "humanely"?) before they left.
Did they mean all or just the ones they have pinned up?

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Watching in real time I got the impression that it was all the civilians they planned to eliminate. I could well be wrong though. Might just be those in the arena.

At the very least I think they would take some of the younger prettier women. And maybe leave the rest of the civilians behind?

I don't know how to feel about this show yet. They only had 6 episodes to deal with the beginning of a zombie apocalypse in L.A. and seemed to fail on so many levels. They really only had one episode of society actually losing it's collective minds. I guess you could say the military just started wiping people out because that's what they teased a little last night with the whole "take them out humanely" or whatever that dude said abot Cobalt. I don't know. It just seems like the finale will be them trying to escape the extermination by the military and then season 2 will basically be TWD formula of being out on the road and dealing with walkers.