Fear the Walking Exposition

I am going to talk about how awful last night’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead was… again. I don’t think I am going to spoil anything because nothing happened so there was nothing to spoil, but if you’re watching the show and haven’t seen last night’s episode you should probably stop reading.

I’ll give you a second to decide.

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Okay… so… When I was in college I took a creative writing course. I had one phrase drilled into my tiny little brain: Show Don’t Tell. When you’re writing, don’t tell the readers what’s happening, show them. Describe the events as they happen, don’t just have the characters say what’s going on.

The writers of last night’s episode never took that creative writing class. Basically the entire episode is Tell Don’t Show. It’s about 40 minutes of exposition. That is inexcusable in any television situation, but here? There are only two more episodes in the entire series after last night, and they spent 40 minutes on exposition?

They also introduced new characters last night. Really. A whole new group. The story tells us that they met a major character last season… after the actor left the show and was supposed to be dead… What. The. Fuck?

Every week I say that the new episode is as bad as it could possibly get. Every week’s new episode tops the prior week in terribleness. Once again, this is the worst episode imaginable. Unforgivably bad.