Season four of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead, gave the fans a great fourth episode entitled, “Buried“, which was a great addition to what is becoming a well thought out and amazingly turned around series.
Even with the death of series original cast member Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) in last week’s episode, fans still got to see Nick in a good portion of the last night’s episode, in the interesting way in which the show is jumping around within the memories of the show’s characters, who survived from the third season.
“Buried” saw Al (Maggie Grace) interviewing three of her passengers in a series of flashbacks that gave new and interesting insight into what fans are beginning to understand as the fall of the group’s baseball stadium sanctuary, as well as one of the root causes behind Nick’s death.
Alicia (Alycia Debnam Carey), Strand (Coleman Domingo), and Lucianna (Danay Garcia) ride along side Nick’s corpse, within Al’s beautiful SWAT armored vehicle, while John (Garret Dillahunt) and Morgan (Lennie James) seem to bond a little as they drive the group on the zombie road, in order to bury Nick.
We also find out that John (Garret Dillahunt) used to be a police officer and finds his other revolver carried by his lost love Laura, who seems to potentially be Naomi (Jenna Elfman). Who as chance would have it was saved by some of FTWD’s original survivors; only to not survive the baseball stadiums onslaught by the Vultures within the apocalypse. News of which hits John hard, who stays behind with Morgan as Al takes the surviving original cast on to see how their war turns out.
The flashback scenes were entertaining, seeing Strand almost become the cowardly scoundrel again, with Nick and Lucianna hopelessly searching a library for hope, while Alicia and Naomi find supplies in an overrun and zombie infested fun waterpark scene.
There was simply so much character building going on, along with a beautiful tapestry of flashbacks, which not only promise very interesting future events, but also reveal the appearance of John’s second western style revolver in Laura/Naomi’s back pack, while also teasing her death.
The episode was simply good old fun zombie tales, with rich visuals, and solid story telling, within a unique and well received way of flashback story telling. Likewise, Al’s video camera introduces a very emotional and welcome element that seems to make the characters all the more human, while also giving the series a fresh breath of motive in the zombie apocalypse.
This last episode, along with the last three, have all been about loss, hope, and survival in that gritty way that fans have really come to enjoy Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” when it was at its best.
