The prequel series kicks off its new season….

Fear The Walking Dead has never quite known what it wants to do. The idea of a prequel series to AMC’s long running ‘The Archers In Hell’ show made a lot of sense on paper. Show how society fell! Give answers as to why things got this bad this fast! Explore the world that lives inside those days Rick was unconscious.

The thing is though, it’s done most of that already. Society’s fall basically happened in the first, truncated season. The second saw some deeply weird unexplained moments (the naval blockade Nick has to swim through at one point springs to mind) and some interesting exploration of everyone’s private boltholes. The material with Strand, the love of his life and the house they shared was actually very well done and led to the show doing something very brave; shattering its huge cast into smaller groups.

But that opened up some more problems, and they were ones familiar to viewers of the original show. The issue with immediately post-apocalyptic stories is everything is still broken and you just end up wandering around a lot. This led to the ludicrous, near-show breaking moment last season where Travis goes off into the wild with increasingly psychotic son Chris but no shoes. They wandered around, fell in with some bros from central casting, Chris got killed, Travis came back and extracted vengeance, the end.

The show’s sporadic, staccato combination of interesting ideas (the hotel) and sudden gear changes (being thrown out of the hotel) was really hard work last season. What was worse still was how increasingly annoying several characters became. The show was at its best when it followed Alicia’s growing resentment of her mother’s obsession with finding her brother, Nick. It was often at its worst when that obsession was given free rein. And even when it wasn’t checking in with three to four groups of characters at once, moving every plot along was a challenge the show wasn’t always up to.

So, season 3 had a lot to play for and the opening two-parter swung for the stars. It got pretty close too.

Eye of the Beholder, written by Dave Erickson and directed by Adam Bernstein, set things up surprisingly well. In short order, Nick, Alicia, Luciana, Madison and Travis were reunited as they were all picked up by the soldiers who attacked Nick and Luciana at the end of the last season. The gradual uneasiness, as Nick and Travis were put in ‘holding’ and Madison and Luciana were charmed, was really nicely handled. New arrival Daniel Sharman is excellent as Troy Otto, the somewhat odd soldier/survivalist who separates the family. He’s plausible and calm, careful and completely broken. He reminded me of Christopher Eccleston’s character in 28 Days Later with less restraint.

The episode proceeded along these two lines until the inevitable fight. It’s one of the best moments the show has staged; scrappy and brutal and happening in two places at once. Travis, new arrival Steven, Luciana and Nick fight their way out of Holding but Travis is recaptured and Steven is shot. Elsewhere Madison and Luciana subdue Troy.

By Madison stabbing him in the eye with a spoon.

I’ll give you a moment on that one.

This led to something the show’s been trying to do from the start: multi-strand action as the family variously scatter, run, hide, fight or are captured. It was one of the best sequences in the show’s history and led to Travis being punished by being thrown into a Walker pit.

This is where things get really complicated. Much is made throughout the episode of Travis’ Maori heritage. At one point Troy uses it to imply he’s inferior. At another, Travis uses it to manipulate the other soldiers in the room. His heritage, and the control it embodies, is passed back and forth like it’s being dribbled in a sequence of scenes that are fascinating and very uncomfortable. This all leads to the Pit which all but states outright that Travis survived, beating to death over a dozen Walkers in doing so, because of his past.

Is that a celebration of the Maori? Is it fetishizing their martial heritage in the service of a TV show? Is it good? Is it bad?

The nearest answer I could come up with was ‘all of the above.’

It’s the most complicated and troubling and interesting thing the show’s ever done. Which you would think bodes well.

Yeah. Me too.

Eye of the Beholder ends with the base having to be evacuated due to a Walker infestation Nick forgot to mention was incoming. Madison and Nick are in a truck with Troy while Travis, Alicia and Luciana are in a helicopter with Troy’s less clearly psychotic brother, Jake.

The New Frontier written by Mark Richard and Stefan Schwarz opens a few minutes later. The helicopter takes fire, Travis is hit in the neck and proceeds to bleed out. As Alicia tries to help him, he reveals a colossal bite wound on his chest, opens the door and plummets to his death.

There’s no other word for this besides stupid so let’s run with that.

Not the moment itself, that’s shocking (if not unexpected given Cliff Curtis’ upcoming role in the Avatar sequels) but the set up for it. Here are all the things that don’t make sense;

– A wound at least a foot wide apparently doesn’t bleed through his clothing.

– Travis isn’t visibly pained at any point after he leaves the Pit besides exhaustion.

– No one checks him out.

– None of the soldiers watching him fight in the Pit see the wound happen. Or if they do, and this is worse, they choose not to say anything when he’s pulled out.

– Maddy doesn’t notice it at any point during their final scene together.

The shock works. The fact we’re required to be idiots to accept it doesn’t. And it’s not the last time the show pulls this nonsense. The same episode sees an entire Victor Strand plot play out in three scenes:

– Victor talks down a crowd by pretending to be a doctor!

– Victor delivers a baby off-screen!

– Victor’s kicked out of the hotel for no reason other than he can go meet the others!

It feels profoundly weird to be complaining about fast pacing on this show but that’s where we are. The death of a primary character almost buried beneath the frantic sounds of the season being hammered into place. It’s clunky in the exact way the first half wasn’t which is a real shame as there’s a ton of good stuff in this episode.

Daniel Sharman, Sam Underwood and Dayton Callie are great as the Ottos. Callie, who we saw briefly last season (not that the characters know that yet) has a scene with Madison which is amongst the best the show’s ever done. It’s superficially kind and nurturing and sensible but has an undercurrent of control and ruthlessness that makes it deeply unsettling. Sharman’s Troy is a preening monster always looking for a fly to pull the wings off but who has saved two characters’ lives already. Finally, Sam Underwood’s Jake is kind and smart and cannot possibly be this good. There’s an interesting hint that Jake is setting people up in the first scenes that I hope is followed up on and even if not, he’s an interesting character as are the rest of his family.

The main cast are strong too. Colman Domingo does not know how to turn in bad work, Kim Dickens’ steely and nihilistic Madison is the show’s heart now and Cliff Curtis does brilliantly with his final scenes.

But the episode, and the season I suspect, belongs to Frank Dillane and Alycia Debnam-Carey. Carey was the best part of last season by a mile. Her relentlessly competent, increasingly frustrated Alicia was frequently the last grownup in the room and here that’s even more of the case. I’m moderately certain Madison is being taken off the board this season too and the thought of a series like this fronted by Debnam-Carey is, bluntly, thrilling. She’s got the presence, the authority and the character’s certainly got the skills.

Especially if she’s side by side with Nick. Dillane struggled with a terrible character in season one but started to bloom last year. This year he’s phenomenal, a prowling, raging presence who is smart in a way none of the other characters bar Alicia get close to. There’s a lovely moment here where he’s given a gun and has two choices what to do with it. You see every inch of the debate flash over Dillane’s eyes before he raises it and it’s a brilliant piece of silent acting. It’s also a welcome upgrade in maturity and responsibility for Nick who, like his sister, is now the most interesting part of the show.

And that’s the curious thing about where The New Frontier leaves us. The episode itself is honestly kind of a mess but it’s the sort of mess that’s left right before you finish tidying up. It’s got potential, and energy, for the first time in a long time.

Verdict: The characters still have plenty to fear, but, perhaps, the massively uneven early days of this show are finally behind it.

Eye of the Beholder 8 out of 10

The New Frontier 5 out of 10

Alasdair Stuart