‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘Follow Me’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 709 of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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It is definitely safe to say that the AMC series, Fear the Walking Dead, has provided its fans with its darkest and boldest season to date. Because it doesn’t get much darker than watching the survivors of an ongoing zombiepocalypse, be forced to deal with the horrors of nuclear fallout and living within the meager confines of a nuclear wasteland. As for the bold nature of that setting, well that has come about by way of powerful stories that examine the lasting impact of such a hostile environment. The kind that has shown us how this kind of world would break a great deal of people living within it, and how its fearful nature might push people that skirt on the edge of the grey area, to plunge into the darkness.
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As evidenced by how Victor Strand has finally embraced the darkness within his soul, which Madison and Alicia Clark worked hard to help him leave behind, by becoming the despot that heroes in the The Walking Dead Universe have fought against time and time again. But while that has made for some powerful storytelling, the kind that has kept us on the edge of our seats, it does leave us to wonder if this is where Fear is going to reside going forward. For this is a show that has attempted to find beauty in prior seasons and featured moments where its characters work for a better tomorrow and as it turns out, the next episode of this harrowing season finally gave us an idea of what might be on the horizon.

For the midseason premiere, ‘Follow Me’, is a story that took the time to explore the nature of redemption and how there is still hope to be found in a scorched world where radioactive reanimated corpses wander the countryside, hungry for flesh. And it brought about these positive concepts by having us spend a little time with Alicia Clark and a new friend of hers, Paul. For when we catch up with her, here, she awakens to find herself inside Paul’s home and well… at first, his strange demeanor and desire and to play music at high volumes, left Alicia and the audience wondering if this man was friend or foe and thankfully… it turned out that he was the former.

Because a little down time allowed for Alicia to learn that this gentleman was nothing more than a man of music, and that he only recently had to endure the genuine sorrow that so many others did in this world, since the nuclear blasts took his wife and well, all he wanted from Alicia… was her help. For Paul was hard of hearing and needed new gear to enjoy his music and his only ties left to the old world, and the memory of his wife, and in exchange for helping put his world back together, since Alicia had to break some of the gear to warn him and kill a walker that snuck in... he would offer her food and shelter and safety from the ravages of the world until she was ready and strong enough to head back home. Since the fever was clearly hampering those efforts.

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Which was an offer that not only took Alicia off guard, but the audience as well. for we haven’t seen that level of kindness in this new nuclear world and what’s amazing, is that Paul was eager to do more for Alicia than those simple acts of kindness. For he also worked to protect her from Arno and his roving band of nuclear bandits since they were searching for her and were eager to bring her to justice for crimes, they believed she committed and if that wasn’t enough to make this man a genuine hero of sorts… he still went one step further in trying to help Alicia. By asking her to open up about recent events and why Arno was chasing her in the first place… and by also asking her to explore exactly what she wanted out of this tense life and what she wanted to accomplish.
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Which were requests that took some serious work to bring to fruition, but eventually she did open up about everything, and she revealed to Paul that she failed as a leader and cost people their lives when they left the bunker to look for PADRE, and that failure, is what has motivated her to be so aggressive in her push to save others. To atone for her mistakes and to redeem her soul and well… it doesn’t get more uplifting and positive than that. Because we haven’t heard anyone speak to wanting to find redemption for a long time in this saga, and the wonder of this story didn’t end with Alicia's powerful confession and reflections upon failure. 
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Because with trouble surrounding Paul and her, they opted to make a hell of a stand at his place. One where loud music helped to turn the living dead into walking weapons and where our hero was forced to sacrifice himself to keep Alicia safe and that act, one that came out of sheer kindness and selflessness, inspired Alicia to return to the straight and narrow that she’s always been grounded within and do right by the world in its moment of need. Which is why she informed Morgan when she returned to the U.S.S. Pennsylvania that she was quickly leaving. To finish what she started and guide people to a better place to live, one that would be of her creation so that it would be set up just right.

Which is… quite the uplifting ending to find in a universe this dark and sorrowful, and it was welcome indeed. For after eight episodes of darkness and worry and ugly moments through and through, we finally enjoyed hope again and a drive for a better tomorrow and that is quite the gift for certain. Because sometimes… the audience just needs a break from the sorrow and needs to believe that better days are on the horizon. And when one takes into account that Alicia has been here before with her mother (whom is still out there, waiting to be reintroduced) … one definitely feels secure in the possibility that brighter mornings are ahead and that Alicia might be able to do this the right way and it will be quite amazing to see how she pulls this off, in the days and weeks to come. Until next time.

To hear more about Season 7 of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ and the journeys the characters are taking, check out our interviews with cast members: Alycia Debnam-Clark, Alexa Nisenson, Omid Abtahi, Jenna Elfman, and Keith Carradine.

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