The beginning of the end is upon us once again. Though it was not all that long ago that the final season of the original series of The Walking Dead shambled to a close while leaving open the door for many more shows to come, there is one more apocalyptic narrative to tie up before then. In the first three episodes of the eighth and final season of Fear the Walking Dead, the prequel series of sorts that is now seemingly almost adjacent to the timeline of the main story, there is a sense of creative freedom that has only been felt sporadically in this expanding world as of late. While there is a brewing conflict that is likely to pit the surviving characters against both a new enemy in the mysterious PADRE and possibly even each other, there is also a more focused element of exploration of the characters themselves. Where the biggest problem of the main series came in how little it felt like any of these people we’d come to know had any depth or capacity to change, this offshoot has managed to mostly stand apart. Though its more grounded first season still remains its best and feels like a distant memory in the same way that the original’s does, there remains something worth holding out hope for here. Whether that will actually last is the question.
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The key to its promise is that Fear the Walking Dead has refreshingly kept the characters central whereas the original buried them under more plot just to keep something happening. Morgan, played by the always compelling Lennie James, has been a part of this story since the very beginning and is still one of the more dynamic figures around which to build this final season. From the moment when he first met Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in the early days of the end of the world, his emotional strife set the tone of what was to come and, at the very least, there still remains something promising in accompanying him on the road ahead. It is when he is alongside Madison, played by a returning Kim Dickens, in the first episode that things are at their most engaging. There is a jarring jump in time, something this and the main series have come to rely on as a way to basically hit a reset button, though you’re willing to go along with it. As they try to figure out how to take care of young Mo, now played by Zoey Merchant, we get our bearings about how this world has changed once more.

Image via AMC

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That being said, there is something exhausting narratively about how the series keeps going further and further into the future with seemingly significant character events having to be filled in with clunky exposition. It does feel more natural than the way this frequently occurred in The Walking Dead, but still takes more than a bit of getting used to. It is like the story wants to be more of an epic where we see the way time has shaped and changed the characters, only it is never quite patient enough to pull this off. While it is perhaps unfair to compare the two shows, the musings on violence and our loss of humanity to be found in a series like The Last of Us is what it feels like Fear the Walking Dead is reaching for yet can’t ever fully reach. Even a component of deception about who is behind the seemingly all-seeing PADRE and a key revelation feels like it could have been taken from The Last of Us: Part II if it was crossed with the stellar recent series Silo.

Without giving away anything in the first few episodes, there are some rather gruesome elements that show things could get a lot darker in the road ahead. Unfortunately, the depravity and deaths risk becoming mundane, as was the case in the main series when there was little else to connect with. What’s different here is you feel the impact of it in the moments of just getting to sit with characters. In exploring the small corners of this world ruled by the dead, everything becomes more alive.

Image via AMC

There are still many gripes to be had with what often feels like the series falling into old habits. The zombies, despite the previous introduction that they may be evolving and actually be more of a threat once again, rarely seem truly dangerous to the main characters. Each of them remains remarkably well-crafted with precise details showing how they died and have begun to decay. The problem is that all this talent can feel like it is going to waste when they don’t actually seem to be all that much of a worry to the characters.

Some of this is the nature of carrying on a zombie show for this long; everyone that has made it this far has gotten somewhat used to them or at least desensitized to the terror. The trouble is that we as the audience start to feel similarly disconnected, as the zombies seem more like puppets of the narrative than anything else. This reaches a particularly low point when one main character gets seemingly backed into a corner with no escape — you can tell something is going to swoop in and prevent them from dying. It robs the show of tension when it often needs it. Appearances of familiar faces only add to this as it makes clear that anyone can come back and robs any potential departures of having real weight.

Yet, despite an abundance of flaws, the small glimpses of characters getting to reflect on their painful pasts and the vast agony that almost certainly lies ahead in their future carry just enough depth to hold onto. There remains a vast journey ahead for it to get swept up into the conflict without having an emotional core, but the current trajectory is more promising than the original was at this point. The show could still drop a bomb into all this again and fumble what it has going for it. However, if you’ve made it this far, Fear the Walking Dead continues to carve out just enough of its own identity to stick with the series for its closing chapter.

Rating: B-

The first half of Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 premieres starting May 14 on AMC and AMC+, with subsequent episodes releasing weekly.