Originally written October 23, 2017

Fear the Walking Dead is kind of becoming something of a “watch out of habit” show for me lately. I remember being intrigued by the concept of the show in its first season, detailing the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse that the main series The Walking Dead had skipped over. However, the “beginning” can only last so long, and so now seasons 2 and 3 have just kind of been more Walking Dead, rather than anything that makes it unique from the main series, aside from its setting. Season 3 consists of 16 episodes, making the show just as long as seasons of The Walking Dead.

Season 3 is basically just continuing the story of the Clark family. Early in the season they come upon a ranch that seems to have a flourishing community. Madison in particular is very keen on making this their new home, as it seems to be the safest option they’ve found at this point. However, the owners of the ranch are involved in a long-time feud between a group of Native Americans that they took the land from. And so, I’m sure you can see where this all goes.

I got a lot of The Walking Dead Season 2 vibes from this season, especially because the ranch setting is very similar to the farm setting of that season. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it does play into the earlier problem I mentioned of the show not being unique enough.

I think that the best thing this season does is introduce the Otto family, who own the ranch. The patriarch of the Otto family is very enjoyable to hate, while his two sons have a very Cain and Abel vibe to them, as one is a very good man and the other is a menace. This family is very interesting, and their characters provided some of the best parts of season 3 for me. However, out of the existing cast, I only find Alicia and Nick to be good characters at this point. A lot of the other characters, Madison in particular, have either become extremely unlikable, or just not compelling (like Strand).

Oddly enough, this season of the show has been both my favorite and least favorite. I call it my favorite because it probably has some of the best individual character moments of the series so far, but I call it my least favorite because those great moments are surrounded by a lot of boring padding. However, I do have to throw a mention to the season finale, which overall is just really fantastic. I think it was a mistake to make the season 16 episodes, because the show just doesn’t have enough going on to justify that length. It doesn’t even always work for the main series, so I don’t know why they made this spin-off as long. I think that if the show would trim down some of the fluff it could be interesting, but as of right now it’s just not reaching the heights of many other better shows out there.

3.5/5