SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3, EPISODE 4 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
It appears as if Fear The Walking Dead is starting to build up a streak of great episodes with last night’s “Blood in the Streets.” Decisions from earlier in the season come back to haunt our characters, Strand has his backstory revealed, and everyone was just on their A-game this week, culminating in yet another great episode for the show.
Things started off mysteriously with Nick swimming to shore at night while helicopters and other boats loom in the distance. He comes across a walker and kills it, covering himself in its blood before walking off somewhere. We then jump to the boat where Travis and Madison are talking about what to do with Strand, with Travis wanting to get rid of him whereas Madison wants to keep him so they can reach this house in Baja and start their lives over. Upstairs on deck, Chris and Ofelia are on watch when they see a small boat with two guys and a pregnant woman rowing over asking for help.
Chris calls for his dad to come upstairs as Ofelia helps the strangers onboard. Travis, Madison, and Daniel come on deck and help the strangers onboard, with Madison taking the pregnant woman downstairs to the bathroom to clean her up. Meanwhile, Strand spotted what was happening and decides to get the hell out of there on his own life raft. Alicia hears everything and comes out her room when she realizes that one of the voices belongs to Jack, the boy she talked to over the radio from the season premiere.
Once she gets upstairs and calls his name, everything goes to shit. Madison gets knocked out and tied up, and everyone else gets tied up and held at gunpoint by Jack and his partner Reed. They then notice that Strand is trying to get away in his life raft and shoot at it, causing it to start deflating with him in it and his radio to be lost. This then begins the Strand flashback sequences that happen throughout the episode.
Ever since his introduction late in season one, Victor Strand has been an enigma. We’ve never known just exactly how he got what he had and what he planned to do. With these flashbacks, we finally got a lot of answers to these questions. Turns out that years before the apocalypse during Hurricane Katrina, Strand was a businessman that ended up bankrupt. He met a man named Thomas Abigail at a bar and after taking the drunken man to his hotel room, took his bank cards and used them to amass his wealth and get himself back on his feet.
Some time later, Thomas (along with his assistant Louis) finds Strand and sort of lets Strand off the hook for taking his cards, and says for him to work with him. After having worked together for some time, the two of them become closer with each other and are good business partners as well as lovers. Speeding up to just before the start of the series, Thomas doesn’t want Strand to go to L.A. for work, but Strand insists as it will only be two days for him (so he thinks). And with that, Strand ends up where we see him in season one.
Back in the present day, Reed wants to know where Strand is so he can have the key to the boat. They tell him that it was Strand in the life raft, but he doesn’t budge and holds Chris at gunpoint, threatening to kill him if someone doesn’t tell him something helpful. Travis offers to try and help start the boat up himself, so Reed takes him to do that while Jack takes Alicia to go and make contact with their leader Connor. This leaves the pregnant woman to watch over everyone else on the boat. Daniel takes this opportunity to try and get free of his restraints while Madison distracts the woman and tries to get inside her head.
Down below, Jack makes contact with Connor who is on his way to the yacht, and he wants Alicia and Travis. Jack then tries to convince Alicia to come with him and leave everyone else, but she refuses unless she her family can come as well. He eventually agrees and cuts her loose, bringing her back upstairs. Meanwhile, Travis is working on the boat in the engine room with Reed watching over him. He’s not watching close enough as Travis sneaks a weapon up his sleeve to use later on. They go back up top and Travis leaves his hidden weapon behind a couch cushion for Daniel or Madison to use before Reed takes him up to the boat controls.
When they’re up there, Reed notices that Connor is arriving and has Travis start up the boat. Connor comes on board with even more people and leaves with Travis and Alicia as captives, leaving everyone else to be killed by his people.
On land, Nick is walking through the streets looking for a specific house. He comes across it and ends up being held at gunpoint by Louis, Thomas’ assistant from the flashbacks. Turns out Strand sent Nick to find him and bring him onto the boat so that they can get across to Mexico. The two of them head down to the water and take a raft back over to the yacht. On the way back though they see Connor’s people on the boat, causing Louis to shoot some of them with his rifle. This gives everyone on board the opportunity to free themselves and fight back, taking the boat back for themselves. When they get to the yacht, Louis asks where Strand is and informs the group that in order to get to Mexico they need Strand. This leads to Madison taking the raft out to get Strand, bringing him back on board.
Other thoughts:
- Although Nick’s side story didn’t get too much of a focus, it was still plenty interesting to see that he did have a purpose for going on land. I totally thought he was just trying to get a high again by being around the walkers, but my expectations were totally subverted.
- See Alicia! This is why you don’t talk to strangers!
- It was great to see all of our characters actually step up and not do anything stupid in this episode (I’m giving Chris a pass for not shooting any of the attackers at the start of the episode since I wouldn’t expect him to not fully trust others that appear to need help. Had it been someone else they wouldn’t be getting a pass). They saw that they were in a terrible situation and did everything that they needed to do to survive, including working together.
- The reveal that Strand is gay was telegraphed throughout the flashbacks, so it wasn’t that big of a surprise when it was confirmed in the final flashbacks, but I have no problem with him being gay at all. It’s a natural reveal of his character, giving him more depth than he originally had.
- On the topic of Strand, it was great to actually see more of his past be fleshed out. The mystery of him was intriguing for some time, but we needed to get a better understanding of who this man is before we got too much farther in the season.
Two great episodes in a row for Fear The Walking Dead? That’s something many people never thought they would hear. I know I say this a lot, but I feel like we’ll be getting a lot of great episodes leading up to the midseason finale. The characters are getting more interesting as well, so I’m more invested in the show now than I’ve been since the series premiere. On top of that, the show is no longer kind of just sailing aimlessly with a vague destination and weak threats. The group now has to deal with the very real threat of Connor and his group, in addition to trying to get to Mexico (which no one is still all that clear on minus Strand and Louis), so things can only continue to be great. Please just don’t let us down.
TheComfySpot 