There’s a scene in the Coen Brothers’ 1987 comedy Raising Arizona that I think about from time to time. In it, Gale (John Goodman) and his idiot buddy Evelle (William Forsythe) have just robbed a bank and fled the scene along with a baby they’ve kidnapped from their friends Hi (Nicolas Cage) and Ed (Holly Hunter) who in turn had kidnapped the baby from a wealthy businessman, Nathan Arizona.
Only, the baby isn’t in the car. They’ve left him behind a second time (the first time was after robbing a store). They’ve driven off with their ill-gotten loot and the last thing they can remember is the baby was in his car seat on top of the car.
This is their reaction to this troubling revelation:
These two knuckleheads are completely freaked out that they’ve left the baby behind, and rightfully so. Even a couple of bank-robbing lowlifes like Gale and Evelle know that you don’t just leave a baby behind like that.
In Sunday night’s episode of Fear The Walking Dead, Morgan and Grace set out to help Althea and they leave little baby Mo all by herself in the nuclear submarine they are still (bizarrely) staying at.
In the middle of a nuclear / zombie apocalypse.
Nobody bats an eye over this. Nobody says “Where’s the baby? How could you leave the baby all by herself? You don’t leave a baby even when it’s not a zombie apocalypse!”
I can’t get past this. Not only is the baby left behind, but they clearly have the means to leave the submarine and go somewhere safer whenever they want—and yet choose to stay. Why?
Maybe I missed something. Maybe there are babysitters at the submarine now (instead of, you know, getting the baby off the sub and somewhere safe). But even if that’s true, this season is irredeemably terrible.
Other things that annoyed me about this episode:
- The CRM reclamation team soldiers are the most worthless idiots ever. They have our heroes in their crosshairs time and time again and yet . . . never get the jump on them. In the end, Morgan blows them up with a Civil War era howitzer canon. Oy vey. Pretty sure this isn’t how canons work but okay Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss whatever you say.
- This is Maggie Grace’s last episode, but they don’t have the cojones to kill her off in some cool or gruesome way. Instead, she breaks her camera (thank god!) and goes off with Isabella, after a really irritating and dramatic conversation about how they need to try to make this work.
- More of Al’s interview footage and crappy “home video” stuff. This has been bad for years and remains bad now.
- Bad dialogue. Lots and lots of stilted, awful dialogue.
- Hey let’s shoot at this armored vehicle! These guys just graduated Stormtrooper school eh?
- The whole episode just felt aimless, directionless, the pacing was awful, it hopped around like crazy. Morgan and Grace are captured by the reclamation team off-screen for some reason.
- They left the friggin baby behind!
- And Morgan is like “you called her our daughter that’s so awesome!” but dude, the baby isn’t there. You’re the worst, Morgan. And you and Grace have zero chemistry.
So far, each episode of Season 7 is doing its level best to be worse than the previous one. Just when you think the show has reached a new low, it reaches even further depths. What AMC is doing allowing this travesty to continue is beyond me. Somebody at AMC must have some degree of taste, some sense of how to run a business at the very least, but so far they continue to let one of their flagship IPs continue in its bizarre downward spirals. How these same showrunners are still in charge of this embarrassment is literally beyond me. I have no words.
Last week was bad. This week is bad. Every single episode of this season has been ridiculously awful. I’m about at my limit, folks. I don’ think I can keep watching this much longer, let alone wasting my time critiquing it when clearly nobody at AMC is listening to criticism of any kind. Fans of this show should absolutely feel insulted at this point, and not a single cast member on it deserves this crap.
So long Maggie Grace, I hope you find greener pastures. I mean, the bar is not very high at this point. Local car dealership commercials are better written than this nonsense.
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