Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 5, “Till Death,” was an improvement over the last few episodes. While some things still really bothered me (like how they handle radiation fallout), there were a lot of things to like about this week’s episode. When the episode concluded, I was left feeling like I had enjoyed far more about it than I had disliked, despite the plotholes.
This article is a Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 5 review of “Till Death,” based on watching the episode as it aired on AMC+. There will be MAJOR episode spoilers.
I’m Still Bothered By How Radiation Is Handled, But the Storyline This Week Was Great
This was a Dwight-and-Sherry focused episode. I went into it thinking I wasn’t going to enjoy the episode very much because last season, I just didn’t love how Dwight and Sherry’s storylines were handled. But Season 7 Episode 5 was different. They had a compelling plot this time around that really tugged on my emotions, and I couldn’t help but find myself feeling invested in how things were going to turn out.
In fact, Dwight and Sherry overall really shined in this episode. Their dialogue, back-and-forth dynamic, and the way the two characters truly seem to care about each other. The actors were really in sync and you could tell they cared about the roles they played.
Of course, there are still certain elements of the show that will continually bother me. How the show handles radiation fallout in the most unrealistic way possible is one of them. It constantly bothers me how cavalier they are with fallout. Another thing that bothers me is Strand’s overall storyline. As I’ve said in some of my previous reviews, they’ve really changed his character this season into a caricature of what it was before. He was the type who put himself first and sometimes made some pretty major blunders in the process. But now they’ve basically turned him into this cartoon-evil character (although Colman Domingo himself does a great job of selling that character with immense bravado and flourish.)
How #FearTWD handles radiation fallout is driving me crazy. Click To TweetStill, I’ve talked about these things quite a bit in previous reviews, so that’s all I’m going to say about those topics for this one. Let’s get on to what was good, along with a few flaws with the story itself.
Mickey’s Storyline Was Unique & Enjoyable to Watch
Mickey may have not shown up until we were already partway through the episode, but in many ways her presence (played by Aisha Tyler) really stole the show. She’s a hardcore survivor who is perfectly capable of warding off a zombie horde all by herself. But she’s still humble enough to accept help and advice from other survivors, and wise enough to see through Strand. I’m glad they decided to keep her on the show and not have her be a one-time character like last week’s special guest.
Mickey stole the show on #FearTWD this week. Amazing! Click To TweetMickey has a unique background. She’s searching for her husband. They were wrestling celebrities together and they got separated after the nuclear bombs. She’s created her own zombie-proof suits by hand and escaped from Strand’s compound just based on her own wits. And she might be my new favorite character.
The episode starts out by revealing that Dwight and Sherry are the “dark horses” we’ve been hearing about. They’re on a mission to right wrongs and help the underdogs when they’re being taken advantage of. In a sense, they’re in a constant state of trying to make up for ever working with Negan, even if they had to do so against their will. They’re also still living with that family that took them in, finding food for them, and together they’re all trying to find Padre. (Having grown up in that part of Texas myself, I’m kind of surprised no one has brought up the oh-so-obvious Padre Island that’s nearby. It’s north of South Padre and right around the Corpus Christi region. I’m betting that “Padre” is one of the islands in that vicinity, one of several military bases in that region, or perhaps even the aircraft carrier that’s perma-docked at Corpus Christi’s bayfront.)
But moving on…
Dwight and Sherry end up being kidnapped by Strand’s people. He wants them to help him find Mickey and bring her back. But they quickly deduce that Strand is a little too Negan-like when this paradise world he’s created, and they opt out of his invitation. They manage to locate Mickey on their own and decide to work together to find her husband.
But things go sideways at this point. Strand’s apparently not one to let people operate in freedom that easily. He ends up sending some of his people to kill the family that helped out Dwight and Sherry, perhaps in the hope that they’d feel so desperate that they’d want to take him up on his offer after all.
I don’t like how they’ve destroyed Strand’s character on the show. But if I ignore that and just focus on this season, then we can definitely see that Strand is a cutthroat, evil dictator and this episode left no room to feel any sympathy for him. It’s basically setting us all up to 100% support Morgan when he and Strand have their showdown one day. I personally prefer characters with shades of grey, but I don’t think FTWD writers do (at least not this season.)
Dwight and Sherry have some kind of fight that didn’t make much sense to me. He wants to go back to Strand after seeing the family killed (before he knows Strand did it), and refuses to go with Mickey and Sherry on their quest to find Mickey’s husband. Even if Dwight did disagree with Sherry, I have a hard time buying that he would have let her help Mickey without him. But their separation does allow him to discover the truth about Strand, so it served its purpose.
Mickey and Sherry eventually find the gym that she and her husband owned.
It’s surrounded by zombies, so they use the ol’ “wearing blood” trick to bypass them. This is where I have another problem with the plot though. Mickey’s blood wore off fast and the walkers quickly smelled her through it. This makes absolutely no sense. We saw over and over again with Nick that as long as you walk like a zombie and don’t make sudden noises, the blood trick lasts a really long time. So that’s a plothole. 🙁
Ultimately, Mickey and Sherry find themselves in the gym, surrounded by walkers. Mickey’s husband is dead. 🙁 He was there, but he died before he could find her. Aisha Tyler does a great job of portraying the grief Mickey felt in that horrific moment, along with her inner strength in pulling herself together to continue fighting.
Dwight eventually finds them, and with some lighthearted music as a backdrop and one too many campy wrestling moves, they dispose of all the zombies. This wasn’t my favorite scene (it would have fit better in Z Nation.) But I guess the producers wanted to have a little fun with the wrestling theme.
In the end, this was a good episode, especially if you just ignore the radiation flaws. I didn’t have to watch any pets die. They decided to keep Mickey on the show for future episodes. And the majority of the plot was compelling and kept me interested. They did a good job this week (especially compared to some other episodes in this part of the season), and I’m looking forward to the next one.
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