‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 8, Episode 5 Review: The Stupidity Intensifies

Pterodactyl here, reporting for duty. I’ve spent the last 8 years writing reviews of Fear The Walking Dead for a secretive organization known as PADRE. This is all part of a covert operation we’ve dubbed YO MADRE.

We are the bird people, and we say PADRE a lot. I’m trying to make up for all the bad things I’ve done by enduring one of the worst television shows ever created, week after bloody week. Let’s dive right in.

. . Another Fear The Walking Dead episode devoted mostly to Morgan this week, with little respite from the melodrama.

I feel like a broken record these days, but every episode of this show is so poorly written, so sloppily edited, so rushed and wooden and inane, it becomes a bit of a challenge to describe just how appalling it’s gotten. Last week, in a geography-defying episode, Morgan traveled back to King County to kill his zombified son, Duane—something he’s been meaning to do for the past decade, apparently, but never had the teleportation power-up to carry out the act. Having unlocked teleportation in the skill tree, Morgan can now hop wherever he wants, no longer bound by time and space like us mere mortals.

Unlocking this power for Morgan has unlocked it for many other characters as well: Dwight and Sherry teleported to King County also, and then teleported back to their 7-but-actually-15-year-old son, Finch, after he used his own super-strength power-up to knock Shrike out cold. (Good thing he unlocked that power-up, because only days earlier he’d had surgery, been bitten by a zombie and undergone intense radiation therapy, which might leave a 7-year-old-but-actually-15-year-old boy rather too weak to knock out a fully-grown, healthy woman). Grace and Mo (why isn’t she called Wren, since nearly everyone else is referred to by their bird names?) also unlocked teleport and showed up at the same time as Morgan.

Many things happened before they all teleported back to the greater metropolitan PADRE area. Grace was bitten, and now Morgan is in a race against time to get her to the train car where June will presumably treat her with high doses of radiation to stop the zombie infection from spreading. Apparently he can’t teleport all the time, or maybe it needs to recharge.

All I know is that the teleportation powers pale in comparison to this show’s true superpower: The Holy Walkie-Talkies Of Antioch. Most of the conversations in this episode take place over walkie-talkie. Morgan and Grace and Mo in one speed boat, racing down the river; Dwight and Sherry in the other, along with Finch.

Bird people shooting lamely at them in pursuit. Everyone chatting it up over the walkie-talkies. Shrike reveals that she also unlocked the teleportation skill and has, in the time it’s taken the rest of them to get to where they are, already been to King County and back, despite having been knocked out by a little boy recently.

Grace doesn’t want them to treat her with radiation. She’s on her way out and she would prefer to spend some time with Morgan and Mo before she dies. So naturally Morgan gets off the boat to lead away the bird people, leaving an 8-year-old-but-actually-13-year-old girl alone with a woman who’s about to turn into a zombie.

Then the 8-year-old-but-actually-13-year-old girl absconds with her unconscious mother to take her to the train by herself, against her dying wishes, where she later performs radiation treatment on Grace by herself with June giving instructions via. . .

you guessed it. . .

walkie-talkie. How did she know where to go? Doesn’t matter. Why were there no guards at the train, but only the teenage prefects that were earlier chasing them by the river? Who cares? Why does AMC continue to employ the showrunners of this execrable piece of trash TV? Not the point! Grace turns, of course, but before that she makes sure Mo knows that she needs to drive a tiny scalpel into her skull to kill her.

Little girl + tiny scalpel = everything will be just fine. But Mo can’t do it. Because we’ve never seen this play out before in The Walking Dead universe.

So naturally Grace turns instantly the moment she dies, much faster than Morgan can run—wait, why is he running when he has the teleport skill unlocked?—to get there, though he does arrive just in the nick of time and saves Mo. Shrike appears moments later, having used her leveled up teleportation skill, and demands that Morgan hand over Mo, but she goes willingly because she “doesn’t want to feel like this anymore” (I guess a whole four minutes of grief will do that to you) and Shrike tasks them with clearing the shipyard filled with zombies where her father died. They can’t use guns because a single stray bullet will destroy everything .

. . somehow.

Just because. Shut up and stop asking questions! It doesn’t matter that her father and his men were fine shooting guns back in the day. Things have changed! Morgan quickly disarms and knocks down Shrike’s guards, grabs the gun from one of them and shoots Shrike, putting an end to her diabolical plans.

The remaining guards run away and the kids are reunited with their parents, who go about the tricky business of un-brainwashing them and taking down the rest of the bird people, most of whom flee once they realize their leader is dead. Morgan and Mo travel to Alexandria where they live happily ever after. The end.

Just kidding! Morgan quickly disarms and knocks down Shrike’s guards, fails to grab the gun and then runs right past Shrike without a glance. She apparently doesn’t hear any of the commotion, but acts quickly and trips Morgan as he runs by like an idiot. The guards get their weapons back and point a gun at Morgan who shouts “You can’t kill me! I can’t die!” which is a convincing enough argument apparently, because they don’t shoot him.

We are not put out of our misery, alas. Scattered thoughts: What did you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook . Here’s my video review : As always, I’d love it if you’d follow me here on this blog and subscribe to my YouTube channel and my Substack newsletter so you can stay up-to-date on all my TV, movie and video game reviews and coverage.

Thanks!.