Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 7 Review: Still Standing
Paul Dailly
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Poor Alicia.
On Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 7, Alycia Debnam Carey's alter ego became a casualty of the abysmal writing that has been plaguing Fear the Walking Dead Season 5.
If you watch Fear the Walking Dead online, you know that she has dealt with a lot of loss throughout the years, but the deaths of her mother and brother changed the course of her life forever.
Her recent journey has mostly revolved around her plight to rid the world of the walkers and save as many people as she can, putting her at odds with most of her allies because she's putting her life on the line in the process.
There's a young woman here who needs therapy to help her overcome the loss that she's endured, but instead, the creative forces behind the show thought that a slow death was just what the doctor ordered.
There was a lot of foreshadowing during "Still Standing."
I figured that Alicia was going to become a casualty at the hands of Annie or something more sinister when she was on the bridge and started talking about her past mistakes.
Morgan: Victor, do you copy? Victor, tell me you're alright.
Charlie: Morgan? Hey, everyone this way.
Morgan: Charlie, are you okay?
Charlie: Yeah, I'm okay. Victor is too.
Morgan: I heard gunshots. You haven't killed any walkers with burns on them, have you?
Strand: No, but we are currently enjoying a leisurely stroll with some of them.
It sucked that Alicia went to war with the walkers only to have some blood from a radioactive zombie hit her.
While many were probably surprised by that scene, it was a rare instance when the previous scenes foretold something was about to happen to our heroine.
This doesn't mean Alicia is about to die; this simply means that she's likely going to have a slow death, which will probably take place over several seasons.
If she does die during Fear the Walking Dead Season 5, there will be a lot of unhappy viewers because most are probably still watching for her, the last link to the Clark family.
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Alicia has gone off the rails somewhat and making terrible decisions, but that's because she's been so driven by her plan to save as many lives as humanly possible.
It's sad, but it's true; Alicia put herself in this predicament.
If she wanted to have a fighting chance, she should have cut the rope bridge, and she and the teenagers should have waiting on the platform for assistance from the others.
It was either really terrible writing or Alicia wanting to get blood on her hands because she wanted all of these walkers wiped from existence.
Alas, we'll probably get some answers down the line, but for now, Alicia is going to be carrying that great burden with her and hiding it from the others.
Given that Grace is already suffering the effects of radiation, it's likely that she will notice the symptoms before Alicia does, and that will force the two women to grow closer.
The radiation plot as a whole has lacked any real stakes until now. Every time the characters appear to be coming in contact with radiation, they prove to be fine.
In theory, adding a silent killer into the mix could have made for great drama, but Fear the Walking Dead has struggled to keep up the pace as whole radiation plot has been either forgotten by the players or just ignored.
The reactor meltdown seemed like a silly development because it's all but impossible for that to happen.
Poor Karen David must have been trying to hold in her laughter while reading the script.
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The very notion that the small generator could stop the end of days was downright absurd, but David did what she could with such pitiful writing.
June: Aren't we standing on a giant gas tank?
Althea: It's not the same, we need aviation fuel ... I think I know where we can get some.
I'm glad that she's finally working with Morgan and has joined the fight to escape the radiation-filled land, but that's not to say I can see past that myriad of inconsistencies in the storytelling department.
One moment, everyone was scared shitless about having anything that touched radiation. But at the same time Morgan used a stick to take down walkers -- and he kept it.
Previously, Grace was the one to ensure that he was following her protocol, but it appears that the character forgot all about it, or she simply doesn't give a crap anymore.
It's a real shame because Grace has been one of the best characters. There's a lot of potential with her storyline, as opposed to some of the others.
Dwight's addition to the FTWD cast has done nothing beneficial, and his storyline is bordering on painful.
His pursuit of Sherry should have concluded on The Walking Dead, and he should have gotten a fresh start on the spinoff.
John finally coming clean about the letter fell flat because he shouldn't have lied about it in the first place. He knew all about the potential explosion of the reactor, and that the plane could be ready to take off very soon.
It made very little sense for him to continue on this wild goose chase with Dwight if he knew what was coming: a dead end.
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The only positive is that Dwight is now ready to do things for himself, assuming he and John manage to make it back on time to escape from the radiation.
John admitted that it would take days to scale the mountains to escape the area, so it made the whole "we need a plane" plot feel completely and utterly redundant.
They have spent days in this locale, and they should have left the moment they got the kids, so they wouldn't be trying to scavenge the parts of the plane to help it take flight.
We're going to do what we came her to do.
Morgan
The show is in a horrible place right now, and there's seemingly no way out. It needs to pick a lane and stick with it while also getting rid of the characters that don't mesh well with the others.
What are your thoughts on this, Fear the Walking Dead Fanatics?
Hit the comments below.
Fear the Walking Dead continues next Sunday on AMC.
Paul Dailly was an Associate Editor for TV Fanatic.Follow him on X.
