Fear the Walking Dead - Buried

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As I was watching Buried, the fourth episode of the fourth season of Fear the Walking Dead, the approach decidedly taken I thought was at least an interesting one in that there is this space of time where it all went to hell for Madison’s “family” in the stadium thanks to the intimidating Vultures, seemingly on the outside happily and patiently awaiting their demise. Having picked most places within a 50-mile radius clean, Madison and her bunch had to improvise and get clever to determine potential locations not yet ransacked and depleted. With Al’s “recorded confessionals” the gaps could also be filled, as Strand, Alicia, and Luciana give us details that led to their situation. Why certain characters are missing, their fates gradually revealed to us. With Strand, Alicia, and Luciana’s mission of vengeance, their face and countenance, voices and behavior devastated and deflated, clearly what the Vultures did to them left deep, gaping wounds and trauma never to fully heal. And with Al pointing a camera at them, rather reluctantly and hesitantly as opposed to prior to Nick’s death by gunshot from Charlie in retaliation for her mentor’s murder; Strand, Alicia, and Luciana return to the previous days that forever altered them, reliving it all afresh. It is an approach that uses Al as an interviewer, while also giving us details from perspectives in a different kind of storytelling fashion.

Buried does somewhat let Nick’s demise rest for a bit while following different duos out scavenging for supplies. Strand introduces a month’s worth of provisions he had been storing in a station wagon just in case of worsening famine, offering Cole the chance to flee for parts unknown with him. Cole puts Madison and her folks ahead of himself. We learn that their decision to return to the stadium would be to their detriment. Strand would tell Al that he should have followed his gut…his gut was telling him to move on. And yet he would return, provisions with him. Cole would keep his secret, not that any of this would matter.

Nick and Luciana have a map and talk of going anywhere, perhaps even north. Nick can’t seem to let Charlie’s choice of Ennis and the Vultures over them go. He still seems to feel Charlie can be convinced to join Madison’s family, despite her behavior dictating otherwise. That Charlie is the one who kills Nick, ultimately choosing that Ennis was the preferred friend/family she gave her affections, is further irony driven home in as dramatic a way as possible. Charlie’s betrayal stings, obviously, but killing Nick is even worse. Luciana offering a book to Charlie that is returned to them by Mel just reinforces that they’ve lost this little girl, perhaps never truly having her to start with. Because of how the show has decided to tell the story of the fall of the stadium and the faction war that ruins everything, Nick can be dead and yet remain an active character thanks to flashbacks. Kind of a ghost whose past is keeping his spirit alive, his request to go further out for seeds and fertilizer to “replant”, meeting Madison’s approval, later determined by Luciana, Alicia, and Strand to be a fatal mistake that resulted in his demise.
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There is a gnarly visit to a water park (where Naomi finds hospital supplies in a chest) as Naomi and Alicia ward off rotting walking corpses in pools, up slides, and out of tubes. The park shows signs that there were “residents” trying to live there, but with the numbers of zombies roaming about (or stuck in the pools), and no sign of life (and supplies/items left behind), it is a reminder (perhaps on purpose by Fear’s creative team) that trying to make a go at it in one location appears to be a pipedream with no real success possible. In fact The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead continue to remind us of this. Try settlements and barricaded/bordered towns dedicated to developing societies that can exist within this world many survivors do but others (both alive and dead) always undermine any attempts at progress. It is a shopworn story arc I have grown weary of. Despite the best intentions and efforts, specific characters we spend most of our time with just can’t reap the rewards of the work and time put into finding a home and family, a place to call their own, to gain any positive traction. Always in vain, we are left to see them left in ruin…or worse. Buried finally gives us Laura, the woman John Dorie has been trying to find since his introduction…and it was Naomi! Naomi was about to leave, with Alicia talking her into returning to the stadium. This episode is about decisions we make and the results that often don’t work out as we might hope. Despite everything telling her she should move on, alone but alive, Naomi decides to give hope a chance, wanting to set up an infirmary, with Madison happy at the suggestion.

As Strand, Alicia, and Luciana feed us the goods (or is that “the bads”) on why they want to find the scattered Vultures on the run, planning to relocate somewhere else eventually to converge, their meeting place on a map found in Ennis’ El Camino, Naomi’s fate is foretold, leaving us with the knowledge that if she had just left perhaps her fate would have been different. John Dorie, instead, finds his gun in a bag Alicia had with her, learning that she didn’t make it out of the stadium, when it all fell apart. In the fourth season, the storytelling decision is to lead up to the big faction war [natch] by giving us a little here and there at a time. Madison and Mel chatting a bit, the essential feeling out process, offerings of joining as a community or as sojourners and grilled hotdogs, leads to a revelation involving a terrible tragedy regarding a farm overrun by a fire with victims screaming as they burned. John Dorie learning that Naomi didn’t make it out, deciding not to go with Al, willing to carry Strand, Alicia, and Luciana to where the Vultures plan to meet, as Morgan stays behind with him; these two aren’t so keen to see more violence. Naomi’s SUV cranking and dying before Alicia confronts her about attempting to leave, such a tragic delay ultimately sealing her fate, is one of those creative decisions purposed towards recognizing that somehow such cosmic interference can make all the difference…for good and often quite bad.