2.8 Grotesque This kind of power vacuum invites trouble, particularly when you’re a blood-soaked American junkie who doesn’t know the language or the customs or even how to avoid getting robbed and beaten by an emaciated girl protecting her brother. This is a world in which circumstances can change in a heartbeat. One week, the people huddling in a church are fine, with plenty of food and water. The next week, they’re dead, and Nick is sleeping next to a pair of mangled dead bodies. Separated from his family by his own choice, the post-Olympic return of Fear The Walking Dead shows us just how Nick gets from the remains of the hacienda to a promised safe haven in the north. As he tells his benefactor, he’s wanting to go somewhere that people embrace the dead. While the others are going to search out family and friendship and safety, Nick is going to wander through the desert to join a death cult, assuming he doesn’t get gunned down by roving death squads. It’s interesting the way writer Kate Barnow compares Nick’s situations, both in rehab and in the apocalypse. He has only the vaguest goal in mind: get north or score some drugs, depending on which part of the story we’re talking about. He’s a hopeless drifter in both worlds, at risk of death at every turn either from drugs or dogs or zombies or street hustlers. In both worlds, he finds a saviour, be it Strand or Luciana (Danay Garcia), the head of the gang who appears to be in charge of the safe zone Nick finds hidden in the middle of Tijuana. Nick’s journey is appropriately epic, and he wanders through some beautiful landscapes and some great desert scenes when not trying to find himself in drug rehab. Nick is a survivor, and he’s clever, but he’s not quite adept at surviving in this environment, as we quickly discover when he drinks his first plastic bottle full of urine (ugh, gross). Here’s hoping Nick is mentally strong enough to survive that terrible experience again. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Shiva, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan got a sunburn just watching Nick shamble around in the desert. Maybe the brightness on the TV is too high? Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.
