Visual wit has been something that Fear The Walking Dead has lacked for some time. That sounds far crueller than it’s meant, the show has often been beautifully shot. Last season’s experimentation with drone footage of the beachfront hotel was especially great as was the down in it ‘Nick walks the Earth’ plot from the second half of the season.

No, what FTWD has not always managed to do is have a little fun.

It’s understandable, and certainly something the core show took a long while to do. In fact, it’s arguable that the first real time they did was ‘The Next World’, the buddy cop/comedy that introduced Paul ‘Jesus’ Rovia. In fact there’s a strong case for that episode being the axis that’s spun the core show onto the profoundly interesting, complicated and fun dynamic it’s currently enjoying.

This week, Fear The Walking Dead hits something similar.

The entire cold open is Jeremiah Otto’s apocalypse prepper video. It’s awful, from start to finish. Forced, needlessly cheery, colossally racist and lacking the courage to own that.

It’s also the VHS ghost that haunts this episode and the ranch.

The pseudo-religious way the tapes are venerated is disturbing by itself, but adding nuance as this episode does just makes it far more interesting. The fact Jeremiah and Jake both know the tapes are crushingly dull and basically useless is both funny and sad. The fact everyone on the ranch uses ‘Unprepared’ as an insult tells you just how many steps the ranch is from going Jamestown and that number is in single figures.

But where the episode really excels is where it shows us the truth behind the fake Americana of the tape. The tacit admission that Troy was abused. The clash of power between the two Otto brothers. Troy’s feral, deeply unsettling inability to see the difference between violence and friendship. The ‘Bible Study’ group who meet to get drunk and high and fantasize about what life is like outside. All of these things mark the ranch out as both reassuringly complex and normal and very, very wrong. You almost forget that Jeremiah sent Troy to the army base. You almost forget about the outlier stations they have, the military chopper, the fact that someone out there brought it down. But you don’t, and as the episode closes, it becomes clear that Madison and the surviving Clark/Manuwa family members are going to be going all the way down this rabbit hole.

Alicia finds a place, of sorts, with the study group. Nick finds either a friend or a nemesis in Troy. Madison, her southern accent swimming closer to the surface with every scene, finds a kindred spirit in the Otto family’s broken, principled, ruthless patriarch. None of them are at home here. None of them are quite outsiders by the end of the episode either, creating a complex, engrossing dynamic. If this continues, then season 3 may be the year this deeply troubled, often stumbling show finds its feet.

That’s especially true of the secondary plot this week. Strand, played with typical ebullient ruthlessness by Colman Domingo goes to see Mr Dante. Dante, whose name is a touch on the nose, is an old friend who is now in charge of a reservoir.

In other words, Dante, in the new world, is rich.

And Strand wants in.

What’s brilliant about this plot is two things. The first is that Colman Domingo is fantastic and, after that horrifically badly written first appearance, has been given the show’s consistently best material. The point here where it becomes apparent he really isn’t talking his way out of it is great, and Domingo absolutely sells Strand’s horror at the fate he’s looking at.

The second is that this is Strand outside his element and that’s a good thing. From the cell to the boat to the mansion to the hotel last season Strand was rarely if ever wrong footed. This year, three episodes in he’s got nothing and that’s a really interesting place to put a character like this. Whether he learns humility or not is unclear. Whether or not we’re going to enjoy watching, especially given the surprise guest at the end of the episode, isn’t in question.

Verdict: This is a smart, dark, fun episode of the show that not only has that witty opening but a definite feel of late run The Walking Dead in structure. Not much actually happens but lots goes on, and there’s a definite sense of bedding in at the Ranch. It’s unsettling, complex and holds your attention throughout In other words, this is exactly the sort of episode the show needs right now. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart