'Fear the Walking Dead' Recap: 'The Wrong Side of Where You Are Now'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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While Fear the Walking Dead has done a phenomenal job this season of outright reinventing the series with a newfound focus on examining the human condition by way of tales that have looked at the power of love and hope and what it means to be a better human being in a time of crisis, one cannot forget that this is in fact a horror story. One that just so happens to feature a world filled to the brim with walking corpses that eat human beings and one that has in many ways, fundamentally changed some people for the worse, something that last night’s episode of the show, ‘The Wrong Side of Where You Are Now’, was happy to remind us of.
 
Which quite frankly, was a touch surprising when one considers just how much focus the series has put upon the bright side of things at the end the world. But, by leaving the last episode on the cusp of a gunfight, and with John Dorie wounded, now seemed like a good a time as any to delve into the darkness and explore what it is that drives men to do the evil that they do, and enjoy a refresher course on how the living dead remain quite the threat in this world and well, it kicked off this bleak journey by allowing for the gunfight that we all hoped Alicia, Strand and Luciana would step away from, to get underway.
 
In fact, this particular gun battle was a tough one to watch because it showed us how anger can transform us since the same trio I made mention of a moment ago were consumed with revenge, and the look in their eyes when it came to their idea of how to set things right was downright frightening and what’s equally more terrifying…is the sheer fact that this group of good people…put down a fair majority of the Vultures, including Mel and well, I’m a touch worried now as to whether or not the original group has lost their way but before we could delve too deeply into that matter, it was important to take a little time to explore a moment that apparently helped to stoke their burning anger.
 
Because at long last, we learned exactly what brought about the end of the baseball stadium, and it turns out that when faced the prospect of having to fend for themselves, the Vultures were split on what to do next, since Mel wanted the group to move on to their next target, while Ennis wanted the group to take everything in the stadium by force and somewhere in the midst of that fight, Mel found himself injured when his bus careened off the road, leading to a tough decision for Madison when Charlie asked for their help in healing him, in that, do they take him in and provide care, or leave him to fend for himself?

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​Madison of course, chose the first option, a decision that proved controversial at first, but it’s a good thing that she did. Because once Mel regained consciousness, he warned everyone of Ennis’ plan to bring down the stadium in his own special way and as everyone worked to reinforce the place as a last ditch effort to keep it going, the story returned to the exploration of what makes us do bad things since fear came into play for Madison, and she made the call to exile Mel back into the world to quell that fear and well, what I truly found fascinating about all of this in general, was the sheer fact that this story offered no easy answer as to why sometimes people do bad or malicious things.
 
Because let’s be honest, kicking Mel out wasn’t like the new Madison in the slightest. She’s preached constantly about how everyone deserves a second chance, but fear can cloud our minds and anger can push us to do things we may later regret and really, what we were privy to in this tale were those kinds of knee jerk moments that simply don’t make sense to us later on and I appreciate the fact that the series didn’t offer us a black and white answer and stayed firmly in the grey and I also liked that the kids and Strand tried to show Madison that the high road is the way to go by making the attempt to bring Mel back to the stadium for treatment but alas, it was too little, too late, since this part of the story…is where the dead came into play.
 
In fact, the return of the living dead ended up being a chillingly unique twist to the story since Ennis in essence, weaponized the dead, since the Vultures covered the dead in oil and lit a fire near the stadium so that these walking abominations would catch fire and render any reinforced wall useless and well, this segment of the story was in fact…downright terrifying. Because it’s been roughly a full season since we’ve seen a herd this big on screen and it was uncomfortable to see this many walkers in one place again and it’s obvious now, this herd ruined Madison’s dream of safety and to make matters worse, the charred remnant of this waking nightmare is still at the stadium, meaning that life is going to get a whole lot more difficult for Morgan and his group, since they’ve returned there at Naomi’s request to make use of the infirmary in the hopes of saving John Dorie’s life. 
 
If anything, perhaps the best word to describe this episode is, chaotic, simply due to the fact that everything fell to pieces in this tale and considering the fact that Alicia, Strand and Luciana know where Naomi is headed, there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re planning to finish their quest for revenge and it would seem at this point that the first half of season four is headed to quite the crossroads, wherein the original group will either choose redemption and the high road, or embrace the darkness and become no better than the Vultures and at this point, I haven’t a clue as to which path they are going to take. Either way, it’s all going to make for a powerful midseason finale. Until next time.  

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