'Fear the Walking Dead' Recap: 'The Unveiling' & 'Children of Wrath'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

The horror genre is and will forever be, a wonderful place to examine anything and everything about our society. It can show us our greatest flaws, it can remind us of how cruel our kind can be, and by displaying the worst parts of us...it can also offer a solution to our woes. After all, we find ourselves frustrated when we see the obvious fix to a problem that the characters are missing in a particular story and by solving that issue in our minds, we inadvertently learn a few things about our world and possibly how to make it a better place.

Throughout the years, zombie stories have served as perhaps the finest place to work out society's woes on screen since the living dead tend to represent and bring out the worst parts of us and Fear the Walking Dead is no exception to this particular set of rules because after spending a better part of season three upping the intensity, gore and scare quotients respectively...the series finally brought social commentary back into the mix last night during its midseason finale since 'The Unveiling' and 'Children of Wrath' examined in detail what it means to let go of the past in order to move forward under the guise of an an incredibly timely analysis of the importance of working together in order to survive and find peace and harmony in our world.

Now, I use the word guise, simply because...the episode did do a fine job deceiving us. After all, the whole 'working together' notion would have been the easy way out for this episode and by making it appear that this was the forefront theme in its social analysis, it actually made for an engaging episode filled to the brim with frustration for the audience before a grand payoff. Because watching Black Hat and Broke Jaw constantly trade jabs with one another and fire off rhetoric had me squirming in my seat since hey, it's the end of the freaking world...and really they should be working toward dealing with the complete and utter collapse of mankind and the hordes of reanimated corpses roaming about the countryside rather than this...but the show made sure to take this frustration one step further by even making it seem as though the characters were changing and evolving in new ways as well.

Take for example Ofelia, who we discovered was abandoned by Jeremiah Otto in the desert, only to be rescued by Walker and taken in by Black Hat where she could rest and recover, and even she seemed different since she took part in Walker's revenge plot by helping to deliver Anthrax to the complex, killing a majority of the Broke Jaw Militia and sickening Nick to the point of concern as well and this is when the 'de-evolution' of the characters truly paid off. Because as it turns out, Ofelia had not a clue that Walker had given her Anthrax and the revelation that she was asked to be a killer by her new beau...brought out the character we have come to know along with the realization that she, and the others, were in essence pawns in a blood feud, and from this point on, the past took the center stage and revealed some fascinating surprises.

---

Jeremiah Otto's past perhaps revealed the most shocking moment of all when we learned that the gunshots he fired into the floor of the adobe a few weeks ago weren't just some random drunken moment, instead they were a reminder as to where he buried several bodies, and those bodies belonged to people related to Walker, including his father and uncle who were murdered by Jeremiah and the Founding Fathers of Broke Jaw Ranch in cold blood years ago when they too tried to accomplish Walker's task of retaking land that belonged to the Native American people, and to see Jeremiah admit to this with impunity when Nick confronted him about the matter and maintain that it was the right thing to do, was downright jaw dropping.

Because it revealed the fact that Jeremiah has been the problem all along and that this entire mess is his own doing and by refusing to let go of this feud, and own up to what he's done in the right kind of way, he's putting his family and countless others in jeopardy. Which means it fell to Madison to make things right and that's when this whole matter of facing the past and letting it go came around full circle, because in order to do what had to be done, Madison had to dig deep and admit to her children that her tough nature and at times overly protective mantra comes from a dark moment in her past, wherein she watched her mother be beaten day and night by her drunk and abusive father and rather than see her mom suffer any further...she put her father down without question and now she was forced to face another angry drunk in Jeremiah and deal with something like this all over again.  

But this time around, she wanted it to go differently, and see if by chance she could get Jeremiah to surrender his own life for the sake of others. However, the elder Otto was having none of that. He was here to stay, he would fight Walker to the death and risk lives in the process and just when it seemed that Madison would have no recourse but to walk down that dark path once again...her son stepped in and put an end to Jeremiah and his strange and incompetent strangle hold over Broke Jaw Ranch, and by committing that act...peace was finally made. Walker was made whole again, families were spared and at long last...the past was finally the past for Madison Clark, allowing for her to move forward and potentially provide her children with a sense of true stability for the first time in their lives.  

While it was beautiful to see that kind of commentary however, and in a roundabout twisted way...a happy ending, there are still some unresolved issues that will no doubt have to be dealt with later this season when the show returns in September. After all, Jake and Troy Otto haven't a clue to the fact that Madison brokered a deal for Jeremiah's life and the discovery of that could cause more harm than good, despite the fact that Troy actually listens to Madison and to top it all off...has peace truly been made between Broke Jaw and Black Hat? There's some deep divisions between these two communities and considering how the past was quite an issue for so many in this episode, can others let it all go on both sides in order to survive in peace and harmony? We'll find out in the fall but in the meantime, I have to give the show some serious credit for putting together one solid midseason finale. Plot lines were wrapped up neatly, there was character growth and intelligence to the script and that means I have high hopes that the back half of season three will be just as magnificent as the first half. Until next time.

---