Fear The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1 Review: Zombies On The High Seas (Season Premiere)

"Fear The Walking Dead" is back. The premiere episode "Monster" is an improvement over last year. Hopefully "FTWD" has finally realized what fans want: 1. Lots of zombies; 2. Cool zombie kills; and 3. Characters we can care about. season 1 was seriously lacking in all three.

Zombie Party Crashers

The opening sequence was a good one. Madison and Travis frantically gather supplies on the beach as zombies surround them. Chris is still clinging to his dead mother. Nick's boat speeds back to shore. Travis and Madison fend off the undead with whatever is nearby-- rocks, sticks and boxes. They finally get into the boat. Travis takes Liza's body because Chris wont leave without her. A walker attacks. Nick takes a boat propeller blade to his face. Yeah! Finally a decent zombie kill.

They watch from the Abigail (Strand's yacht) as chaos breaks out on shore. Planes fly overhead. Fires spring up everywhere. Did the government napalm LA to stop the walkers? That would explain the quick escalation.

Let's Pretend This Is A Carnival Cruise

The group settles into their existence on the high seas. Chris is still cray cray over his mom. Do they know head shots for sure kill zombies? If not, that could be a nasty surprise. They eventually have a funeral for Liza. Chris comes by and flings her into the water. Well, he got over that quickly.

Whose bright idea was it to put Alicia in charge of the radio? She talks to some guy named Jack. He's on a sinking boat in a nearby cove. Alicia is young and stupid and thinks Jack can be trusted. Uh... NO!

My Boat, My Rules

Strand finally lays down the law. "Rule number one , it's my boat. Rule number two, it's my boat. Rule number three, it's my God damned boat". Haaa. Victor's more patient than I would be. I'd have kicked their asses off the boat in the first five minutes. Instead, he's taking them to San Diego for some unknown reason.

Chris ends up in the water. We think he's trying to kill himself but nope. He's just going for a nice swim with his clothes on. They encounter a boat full of holes. There are zombies in the water. Henceforth I will call them "floaters". Nick is almost trapped. He stays very still and the zombie seems confused. I'm not sure what that means.

At Least Nick Gets A Bath

Strand sees on radar that a boat is speeding towards them. Is it the guy that Alicia was talking to? This isnt going to be good.

Grade: 3 1/2 Monsters (out of 5). Based on the first episode, "Fear The Walking Dead" is somewhat improved over last year. I had almost abandoned the show previously. What good is a zombie show without any zombies?

As I see it thus far:

Positives: The beach scene in episode 1 was a good opener. Being on a boat will allow the survivors to travel to different locales. If they're just hanging out on a boat each week, the show will quickly sink. Victor Strand is my favorite character.
Negatives: The teenagers are infuriating. Hopefully this is a device to show their eventual character development. The Salazars are non entities in this episode. I almost forgot they were on the boat. Everyone besides Strand and Mr Salazar is completely brain dead. They can't help but improve (or die) since they're super sucky now.