
You would think that animals would be better equipped to survive than the humans. Otherwise, animals seem strangely absent. There’s the horse Rick rides into Atlanta in the very first episode there’s the deer in season two (episode 1) that gets Carl shot there are the pigs in the prison, in season four, which Rick ends up sacrificing (episode 2) and there are the baby rabbits Lizzie kills in season four (episode 10). First of all, it made me realize how few animals we’ve seen in The Walking Dead-how few animals, in other words, seem to have survived the apocalypse. The appearance and almost immediate death of the dog says a couple of things, I think. Tellingly, the walker is eating the dog in front of the open door. Tragically, for the much more sensible dog, the humans’ idiocy in leaving their door open allows the walker to get in, eat the dog, and endanger Travis and the others when they finally arrive. The appearance of the dog, in short, compels a contrast between its wanting to get in, and the human characters fleeing out. Madison, Nick, and Alicia seem less attuned to the dangers around them, however, and they rush out the house (granted, they’re going to steal a gun) and leave the door open. So we learn several things about the dog: it sensibly wants to get inside and it has a very real instinctual sense of impending threat. Nick (Frank Dillane) lets it in and it then runs to the other side of the house and starts barking-alerting Madison, Nick and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) to the walker lurching toward them. We meet the dog when it tries to get into Madison’s house. Why is it called “The Dog”? Yes, there is a dog in the episode (briefly)-but why is it so important that the episode is named after it?

What intrigued me most about episode three, though, was the title. It’s gonna get better now.” We know which one of them is right. Looking out the window at the soldiers putting an X on the house across from him, he declares, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear: “It’s already too late.” Madison’s partner Travis (Cliff Curtis), on the other hand, seems unable to kill the undead (claiming they’re only sick) and, in contrast to Salazar, his last words are: “Cavalry’s arrived.

As is the enigmatic Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades), a refugee from El Salvador who projects an uncanny sense of “Been there, done that.” He gets to deliver the last, inscrutable, line of the episode. Madison (Kim Dickens) is emerging as a leader, someone who can kill a walker when she has to. We’re starting to see that fundamental divide opening up between those who can handle what’s happening and those who are living in denial-the divide, in other words, between the strong and the weak, between survivors and potential zombie food. (See my less than positive review of the pilot episode.)īasically, the show’s improved because the characters are coming to grips with the apocalypse and, as a result, are doing much less lounging around and whining about trivial things. AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead has aired three (of six) episodes so far and I’m happy to say it’s getting better.
