‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Retro Recap: ‘The Good Man’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

The end of everything. It is a concept that has haunted mankind for as long as we can remember. For we are creatures that understand that nothing lasts forever and that mortality in a physical and metaphysical sense is an inevitability, and thus… there is a part of us that always ponders upon the end and wonders… what could bring it all crashing down. Which is why we explore it often in storytelling, to see if we can sort out this fear/morbid curiosity and perhaps… avoid it. Cheat the death that awaits us and cheat the collapse of what we hold dear and that is why the season one finale of Fear the Walking Dead is such a poignant and powerful piece of television… since it presents us with, the end of everything.
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For ‘The Good Man’ is a story that explores what could potentially bring about the end of modern society, and it is quite clear as to what could cause that. In that, in the days following a cataclysmic or epic crisis, the breakdown of the last vestiges of humanity would involve… a complete abandoning of that which binds us. Such as our desire to come together as community and our desire to lift one another up. As evidenced by the fact that Madison, Travis, and Daniel come to realize… all that mattered past this point, with an impending assault arriving on Los Angeles… was their own and what they had, the rest be damned. And that decision to rescue their loved ones and release others so they too could grab onto what little they had left in this life and save their own skin… spoke to that division becoming complete.

But that would not be the only steps that would bring about the end, it would also take… a desire to destroy and punish anyone or anything that could cause or has caused us harm. As evidenced by the bold decisions made to ensure the freedom and safety of these families. Since Daniel Salazar had no qualms unleashing a massive horde and sea of living death upon the United States soldiers that were supposed to protect people and save them and keep them safe. Who instead caused harm and were also ready to kill to keep their own tomorrow going, and seeing Americans fight Americans instead of the dead… truly made it clear that everything was falling to pieces and that such punishments would indeed accelerate the dark times since this helped the dead win.  

However, above all, the true nail in society’s coffin, would come about via destruction. Destruction of the rules we hold near, the values we put in place and the literal destruction of everything we built in life. Because that would leave no trace of who we were as a people or what we could have been, and that absolutely happened in this tale. In part, because Operation: Cobalt was on the horizon, but also because… that which everyone held dear in this tale had to be tossed aside. Such as a father killing a mother, as Travis did here. An act born out of preservation, since to not end her life would have led to more death and destruction when she would have eventually turned. But in that moment, there was only abandonment of the rules we hold dear, of the lives we value, and, in that moment, the end arrived for all of humanity.

For the dead won the day, and it was their land now, and all that remained for this family… was survival. Which meant, a more brutal way of life, one that would harm them and harden them emotionally and leave them wondering what they would be fighting for and if they could be saved. But in the here and the now, this episode truly was an apocalyptic masterpiece. One that showed us the end of everything and how it could potentially come about if death were to die, and that made for one stunning season finale. One filled to the brim with terror and gore and horrors untold, and that is precisely why this series would endure for eight seasons. Because this episode pushed the envelope and scared us to our core and now that we know how the beginning of the end took place, it will be fascinating to see how this storied franchise comes to its own end when its eighth and final season kicks off later tonight. Until next time.

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