In the season finale of Fear the Walking Dead, the U.S. military finally decides to cut its losses and leave L.A. to the undead walkers. And honestly, I can't really blame them. For starters, the finale’s catastrophe is precipitated by the show’s protagonists’ own actions.
In their desperate, and selfish, attempts to “save themselves,” they release thousands of infected walkers from a nearby coliseum to wreak havoc on the military base and their own neighbors.
The hell is this? Is he turned?
The dead don't use tools, man. Could be infected.
Nice night.
Sir, you're entering a restricted area. Stay where you are. I don't want to have to shoot you, old man.
You should save your ammunition.
Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
Holy shit! Multiple infected northwest corner.
I led them to the north gate, so all the soldiers are distracted. We can go now. We should move.
The compound is overrun, scuttling the evacuation that had been planned for medical professionals and their patients who are instead left to either be put down with a bolt gun, or be eaten alive by zombies. Neither is a pleasant option.
Son of a bitch.
What?
The compound's compromised. And now evac knows it.
Over here! Call backup! Hurry up!
Oh, my God.
Hold the perimeter!
We need more men!
The hard part is done.
If the infected get in, how do we get out?
That would be the harder part.
What is the delay, over?
Stand by, Doctor. Stand by, over.
The compound is secure. We're ready to go.
Doctor, we have reports of infected around your perimeter, over.
They're outside. The compound is secure. If you come now, there's time to extract us, over.
We are assessing, over.
Go. Everyone go. The transports are downstairs.
Aren't they coming?
No.
What about our patients?
I'll take care of them. Just go.
What about Chris?
If they haven't gone for him by now, they never will. I'm sorry. Go, Liza. Run.
The U.S. military had created a secure zone, largely containing the walkers despite significant losses to their own, and rather than being thanked, they’re heckled, tortured, and damned to die by the very people they were trying to protect.
Adding insult to injury, Fear the Walking Dead’s writers can’t rush fast enough to impugn the moral character of our men and women in uniform. They’re portrayed as merciless and fascistic. As the compound is over-run, three soldiers beat up Chris Manawa (Lorenzo James Henrie) and steal the family’s escape vehicle.
If they're dead, they'll just keep walking, right? They'll walk away?
I don't know.
Hey! Hey!
Come on.
Get off me!
Why didn't you guys just open the damn door, huh?
What do you guys want?
Transport. Son, just give us the keys.
No.
Come on, man, we'll take you with us.
We're not going anywhere.
Suit yourself.
What about you, girl?
Hey, you leave her alone. Leave her.
Stop it! Stop it! I have the keys.
You sure you don't want to come?
Hey, don't touch her, man! Get off me!
Add in the post-WWII death camp imagery, piles of human ash, fresh from the crematorium, and Fear the Walking Dead’s disdain for our troops couldn’t be more apparent. Rather than celebrating those who tried to save an ungrateful populace that refused to face the reality of the threat bearing down on them, Fear the Walking Dead presents a military chomping at the bit to let their countrymen die in the jaws of AMC’s undead horde.
Sometimes you don’t know a good thing until it’s gone. Maybe next season, this roving band of survivors will begin to appreciate the military they so flippantly cast aside and the hard choices that must be made in a warzone.
