Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59:40 — 55.2MB) | Embed
[sc:wdtop]
Talking Through Here to Help
This content has been moved and can now be found here.
On this episode 52 of Fear the Walking Dead Talk Through, Brian and Kyle are joined by our special guest co-host Mark from The Walking Dead Talk Through, as we talk through Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 1, which is titled, Here to Help. This was written by showrunners Ian Goldberg & Andrew Chambliss, and directed by Michael E. Satrazemis.
SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!
The rest of this blog post requires a SPOILER WARNING!!! If you haven’t watched this week’s episode, then you should probably stop reading now.
We are back, and we’re here to help you talk through Fear!
We were fairly critical of many of the decisions made by the showrunners last season, particularly Madison’s death, and we had all sorts of problems with the second half storyline, to the point where I wasn’t sure I’d want to come back and podcast about the show. However, with the promise of helping people as a story in Season 5, and a really good trailer, we decided to continue on podcasting about Fear the Walking Dead!
Where’d they get the plane?
We see how far they would go to try to help people. They get a plane. Now, do we understand that Althea (and possibly Strand) are pilots, or did they read a book or play a flying simulator to prepare for the journey? That wasn’t very clear; and where exactly did they get that plane? How did they get fuel for the plane? Who knows. Maybe they will explain it next week. That said, it seems REALLY risky to fly a plane in the apocalypse, especially if you aren’t an experienced pilot.
Why is it so hard to help people?
One thing I had a hard time resolving is why they had such a hard time find people that needed their help. Helping a big group? Sure, maybe I can buy that, but I had a problem believing they hadn’t picked up any individuals to join up with them. Surely, after a few months, they would have had to run into someone, but they hadn’t.
Is Logan a bad guy?
I am really torn about Logan. If the denim plant is really his, then why shouldn’t he be able to take it back? It’s pretty clear it wasn’t a con job to me. He knew the combination and too much about the plant to think it could be anything other than what he said. Maybe in the zombie apocalypse, property and deeds don’t matter anymore, but I can’t really blame him for doing what he’s done, especially since he did it without any bloodshed. That said, why did it take him so long to claim what’s his? Did he have to send them so far away that they needed a plane to get there?
Luciana hurt again???
She is not my favorite character, and a lot of people agree with me. I was surprised to see her start the season injured again. They had a great opportunity to kill off her character, so I hope they have something planned for her this season that will be worth it. To me, I had to wonder why they would injure her again. Why not someone else?
What’s going on?
I have to admit, I missed the symbols reference. It was only the mention on Talking Dead that alerted me to it. In case you missed it, too, those circle symbols on the paperwork were also on the helicopter that saved Rick, so they may be tied to the movies. It has to be. That walker had wires attached, and they tasered Althea, and then there’s all that radiation. I don’t know where this story is going, but it seems to be going somewhere.
FTWD Ratings aren’t terrible…
This week, FTWD ratings were off from both last season’s premiere and the finale, but ratings were at levels similar to Season 4. S5E1 Here to Help got a 0.59 in the 18-49 demographic with 1.966 million viewers, down from the last season finale’s 0.71 and 2.127 million viewers. Talking Dead, starting late because of the NOS4A2 series premiere, only got a 0.11 in the 18-49 with 457,000 viewers, which is way down from 0.21 18-49 and 822,000 viewers for the last season finale. Anticipating this, maybe that’s why AMC is only going to have it for the premieres and finales this season.
That’s it for Here to Help!
We all thought Here to Help was a good episode, but not a great one. There were some headscratchers and some good moments. We’ll see where things go forward. Please leave your feedback for Fear the Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 2, which is titled The Hurt That Will Happen, by 6 PM Eastern/5 PM Central on Tuesday, June 11, 2019. Check the Facebook group for any deadline changes. The best way to do that is via the Facebook group.
Other Fun Stuff Completely Unrelated to Here to Help!
Sign up to our Facebook group to make it easier to contribute feedback and interact with us and other listeners! If you want to help pay for the editing of this and other podcasts, I mentioned a while back that you can donate credits to my Auphonic account, which I use to make these episodes sound so good! That link is https://auphonic.com/donate_credits?user=bmeloche. Please remember to subscribe to us in Apple Podcasts. Subscribing to us helps us move up in the rankings, so it’ll help us out tremendously! You’ll also get new episodes when they’re released. And while you’re in there, leave us a rating or review! It only takes a few minutes and it helps others to find us! Have you checked out Amazon lately? That’s one way you can support this network and help keep the lights on!
[sc:wd]
I have to say this episode did not suck as much as I was expecting it too! I have low hopes for the season which may have made me enjoy this more. I’m still SUPER bitter about how they treated Kim last year and I will forever call everything post 4A for sure the Takeover Era but I have to give credit where it’s due, compared to 4B again this episode was really good; it felt like S2 FEAR quality except there’s still too much Morgan for my liking and not enough screen time for the OGs but Alicia got more attention than she got most of last season so again points. Hopefully the rest of the season will be like this and we’ll never have another 4B quality episode again! Anyways on to what you all have to say! 🙂
“We were fairly critical of many of the decisions made by the showrunners last season, particularly Madison’s death, and we had all sorts of problems with the second half storyline, to the point where I wasn’t sure I’d want to come back” – SAME!!!!! The promotion of Alicia in the S5 trailer had me peaked so I’m giving it a chance to see if she and Strand and by extension Luciana are treated better but I’m still not ok with Madison not being there; I get AMC didn’t want to give them another spin off so they took FEAR and gave it to Lennie James but Morgan just doesn’t work here compared to where we’ve been…again this is the Takeover Era so I’m not holding high expectations and if anything happens to Al or Alicia I’m probably out honestly but that’s me. I figure in reality they’ll ride Alicia until the merger of the shows at least and maybe even into that era of the franchise because she has a lot of the fans for this series if not all of them on some level so if nothing else they need her for ratings but I didn’t think they’d off Madison either so we’ll see what happens. with all the new season characters popping up I’m definitely sweating for certain people to make it out.
“That said, it seems REALLY risky to fly a plane in the apocalypse” – doing anything at this point is risky. 🙂
I’m definitely sweating Luciana’s survival this season along with some others; I actually didn’t mind her in S2, it’s when they made her basically just Nick’s girlfriend I took issue with her handling. I feel she might go out protecting one of the newbie kids because “protect the kids” is usually how it goes even though most are usually useless long run and get written off between seasons because they aren’t as interesting characters as the adults, plus they get limited hours compared to adult actors so it’s hard to do long term. If you count Luciana as an OG, even though she came in S2, then if she goes we’ll only have Strand in Alicia so they need to keep her for that alone but we’ll see.
For the Takeover Era, because again the showrunners in the moment totally stole the show from Kim and gave it to Lennie sadly – nothing against him personally as I don’t know how involved or not in that move he was but it doesn’t endear me to Morgan by extension, I’ll agree this was a solid return, I’d give it an easy 7.
Matt was always known for “Eureka”.
Alicia coming out of the fog in that jacket so made me think of Madison. #AlwaysRememberMadison!
Althea + Alicia = ❤️! 🙂
Not a fan of the beer talk coming back.
There’s too much Morgan in the Morgan-Alicia scenes for me, but I feel there’s too much Morgan period on this show; I do like Alicia is getting more screen time though, she should have been the lead post Madison but again takeover. 🙁 The thing I wish they would stop though with their scenes is Morgan always telling Alicia things, Morgan is not the only one on this show who can give a speech to someone so I would really like to see the other characters talking to each other instead of just Morgan saying his peace and them being all “You’re right” in response; the same could be sad for June and John, I get they’re the pairing for the season but they can interact with others too show you don’t have to limit them to each other.
Actually injuring June would make for a great drama episode because as a nurse she is an amazing resource for the group to have so if you took her out for an episode or two that would definitely put them in a world of hurt! You’d think someone would ask to be trained by her as a backup, that would give a character a new plot plus let her interact with more than just John because again if they lose her people are going to die fast! I’m for that episode; you could do John worrying over her for their moments but on the whole it shows how the smart character is also a critical character not just the ones who can shoot or hit things hard.
Again I personally liked Luciana in S2, when she became just Nick’s girlfriend basically that’s when I lost interest in her. I hope with him gone we’ll get S2 good Luciana back but as you’ve been saying this whole podcast she’ll probably go out this season so it’ll be short even if we do sadly which is an injustice to Danya. Again the last 3 originals, depending on how you count Luciana, just got beat up in 4B when it came to character handling; maybe that’s why Nick isn’t there – Frank got out before things could get bad for his character?!
We better see Althea again, she’s one of the only reasons I’m still watching this series!
Daniel is SUCH a ratings grab move because there’s no reason to really bring him back as his big one on one buddy Madison isn’t there and given what happened to Ofelia he has no reason to help them or care about them so it’s like what’s the point? It’s the same with the Troy rumors – he only works with Madison so what’s the point? Sure Daniel and Strand have some face off stuff but not really enough to justify Daniel being in the season I’d argue so I’m calling it like I see it – Daniel is there for ratings only in attempt to bring some pre-Morgan fans back.
Not looking forward to Dwight coming in either; I miss FEAR being about the Clarks and company, if they’re going to keep putting TWD people on FEAR just merge the shows already!
I really hope Al doesn’t die over those tapes/stories!
They SHOUKD bring back Madison as she never should have been killed off to start with, but will the showrunner’s who allow it? Again it’s not like Kim wanted out like Frank did they just took the show from her and in doing so screwed themselves; I FULLY understand if Kim makes them pay up to get her back as they did her dirty so can she come back? Yes. Will she? I’m not holding my breath; I think Kim would come back for the fans and Coleman and Alycia at least but can they afford her show wise because again I fully get her making them pay up after how they treated her in S4. I’m always going to want Madison back so come on girl! I think it’ll be more behind the scenes keeping her off than story/fans wanting it for sure; if the ratings crash hard enough they might beg Kim back but right now I think show heads ego will keep her out for a good bit.
Disagree as I’m all fine with Travis and Chris being gone as they were not my favorites by a long shot (even Nick was meh to me) but had Madison gone out before she even did I probably would have stopped watching the series. Madison is just the best character they have with her ability to be their hero and villain at the same time; Daniel may come close but Ruben was never around the way they had Kim so she for me was the heart of the series and it is not the same without her. Again for me Alycia, Coleman, Maggie, and Danya are doing what they can to keep me around but it’s still not as weighty in my opinion as it was with Madison – she just brought the drama and organic feels. Is it interesting to see Alicia and Strand without Madison around them? Yes at times but there was no need to rush that plot!
Troy coming back is just asking for so many problems so they’re doing good saying no to that! There is NO reason to bring Troy back as awesome a villain as he was because both Madison and Nick are gone and they were his interactions in S3 and the dude was bashed in the skull and covered in water – if you bring him back no one can ever honestly die on your show again because you’ve basically spit on death. Also you talk about a giant middle finger to any Madison fans still watching this would be it to have him back but not her.
If they want ratings bring back Madison!
I’m all for Logan being a not clear bad guy or even not even a bad guy, he’s just an antagonist to them because they antagonized him first, because that makes him really interesting.
“the plot of the season might get al over the place” – agreed.
“Teens coming of age in the apocalypse” – isn’t that basically Alicia’s (teen in S1), Nick’s (teen in S1), Charlie’s (early teens now), these kids’ this season, and basically any kid in this franchise’s story? Also if they’re now going to do a spin off, why couldn’t Morgan go there instead of screwing up our show? I miss Dave Erickson because we so would have gotten the dam pay off from S3 and still had Madison I feel.
If it’s not fun anymore then yes walk away.
Crossover? You mean Takeover?
Live ratings definitely aren’t what they were, yes they are still the key because of ad money, but you can have ads on apps also so it’s not the end all be all anymore and as the one host said there are DVRs now to account for popularity so rating a show is definitely harder I think compared to back in the day.
From my experience binging does effect how people see stories and characters.
Boo Gimple!
There’s only one “Hellboy” and it stars Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones!
Boo “Endgame”! It knows what it did. >:(