Couch Potato: FTWD 2.2, The Good Dinosaur, In The Heart of The Sea

Thor doll on Amazon

Fear The Walking Dead 2.2, The Good Dinosaur, In The Heart of The Sea

Some non-FTWD couch potato stuff first: two recent movie rentals to note. Kidlet recommends The Good Dinosaur as cute and worth re-watching. I watched it with her and I thought it was ok - the story is similar to Simba, minus the singing. Some scary and sad parts that young children may find upsetting.

We also watched The Forest, which is not worth linking to (really, don't bother), and also In The Heart of The Sea, which had potential but I thought it fell short. I liked that it was a period piece, and the action - sea storm, the whale, etc. - were all great. But I did not like the odd filter choices which I felt was distracting (Kidlet disagrees and says the colors were great). I also did not like how the movie could not seem to decide whose story it was. So I ended up not really caring about any of the characters. By the way, Frank Dillane, who plays Nick in Fear The Walking Dead, is also in this movie. As soon as we saw him on-screen I predicted he would cause trouble and he did. He also managed to get his shirt half-off in very Nick-like fashion. Oh, since Chris Helmsworth stars in this, I had to put a Thor doll on the post. I should also mention that the movie is (loosely) based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick, which I've heard is a good read.

By the way, we have been working our way through past seasons of Doctor Who and have just started on season 8. If anyone is interested in a post of The Doctor, let me know.

On to Fear The Walking Dead. SPOILERS AHOY!


LAST WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE YET!

Paradise Island

I'm trying to wean myself off recapping and I will try to get straight to my thoughts. Episode 2 of the second season of FTWD is titled We All Fall Down. This is a reference to the little girl, Willa, singing "ring around the rosie" and then Alicia helpfully explaining to her that that song is about the Black Death.

Backing up, the Abigail crew learned from that log Nick fished out of the water that San Diego is gone, so Travis proposes that they seek out a ranger station island, which is what they do. They meet the ranger and his family on an island with a pretty sweet set-up: they have fences keeping the floating dead out, they have veggie gardens, they seem to have power, and food. Our Atlanta TWD gang would have killed for this set-up.

It's a measure of how little adjusted Madison and the island mom are that they both think the kids will be better off on the boat than on the island. Unless the island dad was really planning to go Jonestown, which he didn't seem to be - after all, he was fixing the fence.

Speaking of Jonestown, what kind of pills were those supposed to be, exactly? And since when can a drug addict identify poison pills? It would have been a lot more realistic for him to try one and then say "oh, shit". And why doesn't Madison ask him what's he doing searching the house for pills anyway - isn't he supposed to be clean? (My personal theory is that as long as he wears the old guy's stolen coat it's a sign that he's still an addict.)

Another way Madison is out of touch with reality is the way she blithely offers to take the whole family on the boat. I guess she did not hear Strand's "It's my boat" speech last episode. But speaking of Strand, what's our theory? Drug runner? Who is he meeting? Is that a satellite phone? So many questions about our captain.

What's clear is that Daniel is the guy you want on your side on a west coast apocalypse. He knows how to be useful and how to snoop without causing collateral damage. Nick should take lessons. I'm also curious if Daniel will have any unexpected connections if they make it to Mexico, where I think they are headed for. Or will the mysterious boat, presumably with Alicia's Jack, catch them first.

Teen-angst model Chris seemed impressed by the oldest son of the island family, and watching him shoot his zombie mom may reconcile him to what Travis had to do to his own mom (Kidlet has the same thought). If I was the oldest son, by the way, I'd probably stay on the island with my brother too rather than go away with this group of strangers. Life was ok until they came along, after all.

The preview for the next episode shows the girl from the Flight scenes on a raft. It will be, hopefully, an exciting change of pace if she, and I assume the boy next to her on the flight, joining FTWD (Kidlet is very excited about these two joining the show). And such a relief if we finally get a competent female on board. After all, (and I'm looking at you, Ofelia), how many sad-faced maidens does a boat need?

Did you watch the episode? What did you think?