Originally written October 16, 2018

Fear the Walking Dead has had a really interesting show trajectory so far. Where The Walking Dead (the show that it’s a spin-off of) has basically just kept getting worse with every season (although I don’t think it’s been a direct downward spiral necessarily), Fear the Walking Dead seems to have gone in the opposite direction. I think that the first season has been its worst one so far, seasons 2 and 3 being kind of similar in quality, and now season 4 is easily the best one so far. For me, comparing where the two shows are at, Fear the Walking Dead has now moved from being the “meh” spin-off of The Walking Dead to being a show that’s now currently better than its counterpart. This season of Fear the Walking Dead is easily its best yet, so if you’ve been a bit on the fence with it over the last few years, this one might surprise you.

I think one reason this season is so good is because it differentiates itself so much from the first three seasons. This season has some new showrunners, and they’ve basically reinvented the show to be something completely fresh and new. It’s a bit hard to fully explain the plot of this season, so I’ll just give the bare bones. I won’t even go into the story of the second half of the season since I don’t want to spoil anything. But the first half operates on three different timelines that we see things unfolding in simultaneously. The briefest timeline we see is immediately after the crazy season 3 finale, although we actually don’t get a ton of resolution to it. We mainly just see bits and pieces to demonstrate why Nick is now having PTSD. This was a bit disappointing to me since I found season 3’s finale to be so enthralling, and so we don’t actually see much fallout from it. The second timeline we see involves something else happening “in the past,” where the family is now back together and are trying to build a community. However, in Walking Dead tradition, a group comes to attack them and take away everything they’re trying to build. Then, in the final timeline, we see the characters “in the present,” where everyone is back on the road, trying to recover from everything they’ve lost. This all serves a purpose, but I can’t go into it too much beyond that.

Without a doubt, the biggest reason why season 4 is so good is because of its characters. Like I’ve said, season 4 feels like a completely new show, and that also extends to its characters. I don’t want to spoil any deaths or anything, but by the end of the season there are 10 characters in the main cast, and only two of them are characters that have been on the show since the first season. There is one other character that joined the show in season 2, but other than that, the rest of the 7 characters are all characters that have just been introduced in this season. I’m normally against this kind of character treatment, but Fear the Walking Dead has had a bit of a mixed bag with its characters in the past, and the show was in need of a makeover, so I’m fine with it here. Plus, the new characters here are all absolutely compelling, and are among the best characters the show has had, so I’m perfectly fine with shifting the focus to these new characters. One of these new additions is Morgan Jones from The Walking Dead, who makes for a nice addition to this cast. He’s much less of a caricature than he is on The Walking Dead, and is much more grounded and relatable than he was on that show.

While the show does have some central conflict and ongoing plots, I found it to be much more character-driven than past seasons. It’s all about relationships, dynamics, and personal journeys. This is especially true for someone like Morgan, who has left his home to find himself after some tremendous losses. He’s trying to cope and stay away from people because he feels as though, to quote himself, “he loses people, and then he loses himself.” However, he can’t help himself but step in to help when he finds people in need, and so he joins the cast here and must struggle with his inner conflict. There’s another great example of character drama here, but I can’t spoil it. There is a one-off episode in the second half of the season that is all about two characters that are trapped in a house together (during a hurricane). One character has killed a loved one of the other character, and there are some obvious tensions and strong feelings here. There was such a great dynamic here, though, as the two must stay in a confined space together and learn to work with each other. This was easily my favorite episode of the whole series so far, and featured my favorite scene of the series as the two characters find themselves trapped in a flooding basement.

Season 4 has a much more of a bleak tone and aesthetic than previous seasons of Fear the Walking Dead, but it avoids the mistake that many shows and movies make when doing this by being too overly depressing all the time. Fear the Walking Dead finds balance and gives some moments of levity for its characters, and so the show manages to be completely bleak for its characters while not being too depressing for its audience.

There’s just a lot to congratulate for season 4 of The Walking Dead. It has very strong characters, tone, acting, and direction. I think the show is in much better hands than it used to be, and it’s a much better show for it. The only real criticism I’ll give it is that it has some story issues. It does make some mistakes, such as killing off two major characters in too close proximity to each other, with the first death feeling meaningful but the second death just feeling unnecessary. The season also does fall into some unfortunate storytelling conventions that both Walking Dead shows usually do, such as relying on a new antagonistic group to create drama. However, there’s more to love here than not, so it really didn’t bother me as much here as it has in the past. Overall, season 4 of Fear the Walking Dead is really good, and while it might not reach the heights that The Walking Dead did in its first three seasons, it’s probably one of the best seasons I’ve seen for either show in recent years. If you’ve been on the fence about this spin-off before, this is the time to get on board, as it’s in really good hands now.

4/5