'Fear the Walking Dead' Recap: 'Drowning in Water, Burning in Flame'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

It's been quite the season of Fear the Walking Dead thus far. Gone, seemingly forever, are the brooding stories this series featured in year's past, replaced instead with a heavier focus on action and adventure and tense moments and well...it's really been quite the success. An air of danger permeates every single episode now and it's made a couple of stories this season downright exhausting to watch. However, despite this bold new direction for the show...there is one element when it comes to this show that I was hoping to see reappear at some point, it's focus on social commentary.  

After all, the finest zombie stories out there say something about our world and our society, in either heavy handed or simplistic fashion and up until this season, Fear put a solid focus on that brand of storytelling. However, making note of the lack of it in season three is not meant to be a knock against the show. It truly needed a shot in the arm and action and splatter are equally as important in stories such as this, but I have been wondering in the back of my mind, just how awesome it would be to see a little social commentary finds its way into season three and last night's episode, 'Drowning in Water, Burning in Flame' delivered just that, a gripping and adventurous story that also examined our need for revenge, and the distinct need for purpose at the end of the world.

But let's take a look at the revenge parable in this story first, because this episode explored its dynamics in fascinating fashion by way of Madison and Daniel Salazar. Now Madison's story was far more traditional by design because she was on a quest, with the always charming Troy Otto, to find out who shot down the helicopter and murdered her husband and her story served as a reminder that sometimes, an eye for eye brings us peace in our mind, and for Madison, it was imperative at this point to find that kind of peace. Of course, what she found on her quest was far more disturbing, since now we know a rival faction, composed of Native Americans, went after the chopper to send a message to the Ottos to leave their land so it can be reclaimed by this group. But the fact that the story didn't offer up a 'this is right' or 'this is wrong' message to go with her story was intriguing since to a certain extent...we have all been where she's been.  

That same lack of moral expectations was also present in Daniel's story. Since his idea of revenge was to take Strand out for a little journey, with a gun pointed at Victor of course, back to the hotel to find Ofelia. Of course, the audience already knows she's not there, and deep down I think Daniel did as well, but his notion of revenge was to straight up teach Strand a lesson he will never forget. Because as Victor is wont to do, he stuck to his lie, he sold it until the bitter end and while it's sad to see that the hotel has fallen to the dead, those walking corpses helped to force Strand tell the truth for a change, which allowed for Daniel to leave Strand on his own, adding another lesson to this part of the story, in that...no one really cares anymore about Victor's deal making skill set...it's the end of the world and mankind has to uncover a new set of skills when it comes to survival.

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Which of course brings us to the other message this episode explored in detail...the need to find purpose at the end of the world. Because clearly, Strand is struggling with such a notion and so did the rest of the Clark family. After all, for the first time since they left Los Angeles, they've had time to breathe and time to process their pain and both brother and sister found themselves at a crossroads. Alicia perhaps saw the tougher path ahead of her because the life she left behind meant more to her than merely surviving for the sake of survival and she spent the entire episode trying to find a purpose or a direction, drifting between drinking with her new buddies and searching desperately for an emotional anchor by way of a hookup with Jake Otto. Granted while the physical intimacy may have been nothing more than release for her, Jake did have wise words to offer her in the wake of their fling and it seems in the end, she's learning to live life and survive at the same time.

Oddly enough, for the first time ever we saw Nick interested in the notion of settling down in this community with Lucia and much of his journey was encouraged by Jeremiah Otto. It would seem Nick and this older gentlemen share a kindred spirit since both of them are addicts who escaped the clutches of their respective poisons and Jeremiah used that spirit to show Nick that sometimes settling down and appreciating what is present before him is not a bad thing and the simple logic he sent Nick's way helped the young man do his best to get Lucia to stay at Broke Jaw Ranch with him and potentially build a life together for a change and while Lucia had none of this and went back to Mexico without Nick, it was quite nice to see the young man grow in a way we've never seen before and even honor his father in the process.

Yet while this sounds suspiciously like a classic episode of the series, have no fear...there was plenty of horror to be found as well. The opening moments of the show with Russell and his zombified wife Martha was both revolting and comical as Martha tried to eat him sans false teeth before Russell shared one last dance with his beloved before putting a bullet in both their brains and what the rival group did with Jeremiah's first survey team was downright disturbing because really...who takes the time to cut away a man's skull and feed his brain to the crows? Our new villain, that's who and their decision to do something like that...was utterly chilling and uncomfortable to say the least. But what matters more, is the fact that the show found a nice way to balance the scares and discomfort with a smarter script and I do hope this trend of combining both elements, continues.

If anything, this was quite the nice little transitional episode. It could have gone the slow route, and provided us a break from the usual carnage but instead, it made us think, it creeped us out and most importantly it set the stage for quite the showdown between the Broke Jaw Ranch and their newfound enemies and when all is said done...I really enjoyed this episode. It was cool to see the story not hand us a scolding or spoon feed us obvious answers to life's little problems, instead it took the time to show how some people deal with them in their own special way, and that's a nice change of pace for this series. Either way, looks like it won't be long before this little conflict spills over into something worse and hopefully the people of Broke Jaw can come together to save what they have...unless of course Troy ruins it...because that guy, is a mess. Until next time.

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