- SPOILERS AHEAD … AND POETRY, DAMN POETRY AND BRAIN-EATING CROWS
One of the great existential dilemmas of The Walking Dead franchise as a whole has been whether it is possible to stay human (be tender, merciful, cultured, artistic) in the face of an unrelenting threat that, on the face of it, demands that everything non-essential be shelved.
It’s worthy issue to ponder and contrary to what many characters have alleged over many episodes, where the eternal battle between humanity and sheer animalistic survival waged long and hard, it could just be possible to keep your life and your soul, the two not necessarily being mutually exclusive.
That’s at least what Jake (Sam Underwood), the good and sane, nay cultured and thoughtful son of survivalist supremo Jeremiah (Dayton Callie) – oh the irony that the son of a doomsdayer would be the one arguing for retention of everything good and elevated that makes us human – told Alicia (Alycia Debnam Carey) right after they had fallen into and out of the sheets.
(Alicia is finally getting her teenager on, staying up all night for drugs-and-alcohol “Bible study and now hot sex with the head honcho’s studly son.)
Alicia, who’s seen rather too much of the new gritty, brutalist realism of the world outside, was inherently dubious and why wouldn’t she be? While Jake has been outside, it’s for quick sorties, out-and-in missions to get fuel, stop his wacko brother Troy (Daniel Sharman) from going full metal Mengele on everyone around him, while Alicia has done the hard yards, hauling herself from L.A. to Mexico and back into Texas, blood and loss all around her.
In a world like that, is there really time for art and literature? Time to be human? To stop just surviving and … LIVE?
Jake says “YES”, handing her a copy of Charles Bukowski’s Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973, part of his youthful explorations of writing before his father “steered him” (hello euphemistic wording!) to law, a skill “more useful” to the cause, which to be fair, did turn out to be a cause after all, and not just deluded ravings of a conspiracy theorist.
You got the feeling Alicia wasn’t buying the whole arts and humanities as a real deal in the apocalypse but by the end of the episode, she was leaping into the dam (no book obvs), smiling and beginning to realise that maybe, yes you can keep your eye on the finer cultured things in life and still keep breathing.
This naturally is a prelude to everything going completely to crap, but for now, Fear the Walking Dead has come down firmly, and without dramatic philosophising, on the side of being a well-rounded member of the human race, even when non-poetry reading zombies are your neighbours.
Or has it?
Not so quick my better angels of human nature peeps.
While Jake and Alicia were getting their Bukowski on – both metaphorically and literally, ahem – Madison (Kim Dickens) was out on safari with Troy and four other camo-clad men in search of the people who took down the chopper out of which tumbled a gunshot Travis (Curtis Manawa).
It was a very personal mission, with both Troy and Madison gunning, again literally and otherwise, for whoever took down the helicopter, but it showed that you can read all the Bukowski you want and there will still need to be some hard ass payback taking place.
Of course, the kind of payback that Troy, always a few magnetic points short of the full compass, morality and compassion-wise – we found out from Jeremiah that this might have had a little, OK a LOT to do with being locked in dark basements overnight by alcoholic parents – has in mind is way beyond what most other people, at this early stage of the apocalypse, would deem to be acceptable.
However, still grieving for Travis and pissed off at whoever ended his life early, Madison was all ready to go full bore vengeful lover on the asses of her enemies … that is until they turned the table on the ranch group, stealing their boots, their cars, their guns, and yup, a huge amount of their dignity.
Oh, and led by a First Nations warrior, Qaletqa Walker (Michael Greyeyes), who was in no mood to play nice, a demand that they give up the ranch too.
So all in all, not a great day out revenge-adventuring, not a single bit of Bukowski read – you get the feeling Jake and the gang are not the book-reading, humanity-preserving kind – proof that while it’s nice to keep your humanity intact, you have to keep your wits about you too.
Hence, it was a pity that Victor (Colman Domingo) didn’t heed that piece of advice, forced on a road trip by Daniel (Rubén Blades) who knew full well that Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) is not at the hotel but insisted they go together to find her anyway.
Of course, Victor knows that Daniel knows etc etc but he really has no choice in the matter, and it all ends rather badly with Victor left back at a zombie-infested ruined hotel, Daniel hightailing it back to the dam, and the world back in the grip of whatever-it-takes apocalypse business-as-usual.
One bright spot in their blighted battle between the two apocalyptic dynamics of Bukowski Hell Yeah and Blood Dammit! was the nascent friendship between Nick (Frank Dillane) and Jeremiah, who bonded over cleaning up the burnt out home of one the first founding couple of the ranch.
The elderly couple died after the wife died of natural causes and turned, leaving her husband no choice but to end their lives together with a single gunshot through the head (her attempts to gnaw his neck open, so romantic, were thwarted by her false teeth not being in her mouth; let’s hear it for poor dental care earlier in life!), leaving a community grieving and an almighty mess to clean up.
Hoping he could convince Luciano (Danay Garcia) to stay if he prettied up the house, Nick set to scrubbing and cleaning and get it shipshape ready for the love nest he would would change the mind of his beloved who, probably rightly, think the monsters within are more dangerous than the ones without.
Despite an inordinately “awww gee, that’s sweet” picnic to win her over, Luciano heads off in the middle of the night – so clearly not overly committed to the relationship then yeah? – and Nick is left with a dirty singlet, some crushed hope and a friendship with a fellow recovering addict that may, or may not, hold him in good stead.
Not the best of all outcomes but then no one died; well yet, I honestly don’t know if Luciano has much of a plan beyond beyond Not Here.
All in all, it was a taut, solid, nuanced episode which beautifully articulated the now eternal struggle between the idealists and the pragmatists, a push-and-shove dynamic that is likely to remain alive and kicking as long as there are people alive to debate it.
- Ahead on Fear the Walking Dead … yep things are going to crap as predicted. The idyll looks like splitting apart both within and without. Possibly not the best time to break open your Bukowski paperback …