Is anyone else starting to get major Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 vibes?
Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 5 was a Dwight and Sherri-centric hour, and while it helped advance their relationship, it felt a little too familiar for my liking.
If you watch Fear the Walking Dead online, you know they have been reunited under the most intense of circumstances.
They got a second shot at life after serving the nuclear apocalypse. There was a moment of realization for them that they had wasted so much time apart from each other.
At its core, the franchise is about survival and the decisions you need to make to move beyond what has happened before.
Dwight and Sherri are still very much haunted by what happened to them in the Sanctuary. I have to commend the show for not forgetting about the psychological and mental warfare Negan played with them.
The look on Sherri’s face when Strand referred to the Tower as a “sanctuary” made it all too real for Sherri.
She knows Strand is a tyrant in the making, and his community could implode into unrest at the drop of a hat.
Christine Evangelista kills it every single time Sherri is on-screen. You can see the pain on Sherri’s face when she’s reminded of the past.
Dwight is similarly haunted, and I hope the Dark Horses arc gives them what they need to move forward with their lives.
There are still many cracks in this relationship, but their new outlook might allow them to make some strides.
Killing the person they were tracking at the beginning of the episode would always come back to bite them. Things have a habit of coming back around on this show, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
It was genuinely harrowing watching the pair enter the basement to learn the fate of the people they spent so much time with in this second apocalypse. It was enough to change their perspectives on this new world forever.
The Dark Horses following a code is a compelling hook, but we’re 11 years into the first apocalypse and a few months into the latest, so how many people are truly still in the area?
If Dwight and Sherri do follow a code, it changes the parameters of their respective arcs, more so if they stick to it.
Bringing someone like Aisha Tyler into the mix is huge, but the series wasted a good opportunity here.
Mickey’s introduction was poorly executed. There were too many glaring issues in the introduction to sit back and enjoy the ride.
The dynamic between Sherri and Mickey is solid, and maybe this half-baked introduction will prove to be worth it down the line.
Mickey is a badass who will help switch things up as a Dark Horse, but I wish the show introduced her more excitingly.
There were no stakes. Even the skirmishes with the zombies didn’t make me feel anything because there was no way any of the three focal characters would be killed in this episode.
That being said, the fight with the walkers was one of my favorite scenes in some time. The show regularly forgets about the zombies and leaves them as a mere afterthought, but there was something exciting about having so many in the frame at once.
My biggest concern about this episode is that it never really advanced any of the plots. Strand was on hand to dole out his own brand of sass, and quite frankly, it’s wearing thin.
The anthology approach was such a pivotal part of the success of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6, but it’s no longer working.
Having the characters strewn out across these different locations is changing the show in a way I don’t like. At least on Fear the Walking Dead Season 6, there was a clear direction all of these anthology arcs were following.
Here, it is very reminiscent of Fear the Walking Dead Season 5, with many plots moving sideways and providing minimal payoff.
There is still time to switch things up before we reach the halfway point, but my hope for the second half of Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 is that we delve into the battle between Strand and Morgan.
We need bigger stakes, and that involves killing some characters off. The only character of note to die on the last three seasons is John Dorie, and he was one of the best.
It was a death that shocked the fanbase and rocked the foundation of the show. We need more of that to believe this is a nuclear-radiated world ravaged with zombies.
As things stand, the series is depreciating in the quality department, and it needs a fast jolt of slide to bring it back to the show we know and love.
Hopefully, the show better utilizes Aisha in future episodes.
What are your thoughts on Dwight and Sherri’s arc? Do you think the show is purposefully throwing conflict in their way?
Did you like the introduction of Mickey?
Hit the comments below.
Fear the Walking Dead continues Sundays at 9 p.m. Check out new episodes a week earlier on AMC+.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
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