Fear the Walking Dead: Close Your Eyes

First Aired August 19th, 2018

Alicia (played by Alicia Debnam-Carey) breaks into a house to escape the storm and after clearing the walkers removes all the photos. While upstairs she hears a noise and after calling out that she’ll kill whoever they are discovers it’s Charile (played by Alexa Nisenson).

Charlie runs and locks herself in a room and Alicia grabs takes supplies but while trying to get into a car the wind knocks her out. She wakes up back in the house and through the door demands to know why Charlie saved her. Not getting an answer Alicia lays out everything Charlie did to her including causing the deaths of her family. Alicia makes it clear she can’t send Charlie out and that she doesn’t want to kill her because it’s not what her mother would want. But declares Charlie to be a waste of a person who will have to always live with what she did and can never make up for it while Charlie silently cries on the other side of the door.

Later Charlie looks through the family’s photos while drying them from the rain, Alicia is frustrated that Charlie isn’t talking but has her help secure the window shutters but the hammering attracts walkers. Alicia finds the gun Charlie used to kill Nick (played by Frank Dillane) and holds it to the girl’s head but can’t bring herself to pull the trigger so Charlie runs upstairs. From the balcony Charlie sees a walker on a tree branch and nearly lets it bite her before Alicia saves her.

Was really hoping to see a Sharknado-style scene of walkers flying through the storm, although the storm blowing away the opening title screen was a nice touch. The imagery of Alicia laying out the bodies similar to a family photo was also a powerful visual. But while the storm raged the real action was inside the house, Alicia finally had her long awaited confrontation with Charlie. Her emotions raged almost as hard as the storm; she alternated from struggling to forgive Charlie to trying to ignore her and almost shooting the girl in the face.

What made it all the more powerful was seeing Alicia resolved not to forgive Charlie and struggle to let her live. Any other time Alicia would have simply left but being forced to weather the storm Alicia unloaded on Charlie and held nothing back. Keeping the episode focused on these two was a smart choice because this confrontation has been brewing for so long, and whatever is happening with the others can be explored in later episodes.

Alicia realizes Charlie has been contemplating suicide and while she acknowledges that she can’t think of reasons to keep going, she won’t let Charlie kill herself. Charlie finally speaks and asks why Alicia saved her, Alicia says Charlie can’t get off the hook that easily and deserves to live with her guilt. While eating later that night Charlie asks Alicia about her life in California, Alicia is hostile but they talk about their pasts and Charlie mentions never being to the beach and her parents planning a trip until the world ended.

The wind breaks a window and the girls head to the basement and find it flooded, but the house partially collapses and debris traps them. Unable to escape through the storm doors and the water slowly rising Alicia finds a box for them to stand on. Charlie breaks down and says she doesn’t want to die or become a walker and recalls she saw her parents turn. She can’t remember their faces before they turned and wished she had a picture of them. Charlie first begs and then tries to provoke Alicia to shoot her but Alicia is unable to pull the trigger and breaks down.

There are all kinds of awkward dinner scenarios, trying to make conversation while breaking bread with your brother’s murderer is a new one. Charlie’s attempts at conversation came off as an attempt not just to get to know Alicia but humanize herself to make it harder for Alicia to kill her. By that point Alicia decided living with guilt was a better punishment but her mood could change at any time. From a story point of view it was great to finally hear more about Charlie’s life because it made her a sympathetic character beyond the ‘she’s just a child’ concept. Having gone through all of this we’re meant to believe Alicia and Charlie could learn to live together, and possibly they can. But no matter what Alicia will never forget Charlie is responsible for her family being dead, and it’s not likely everyone else will be so quick to accept her. Now that Charlie is a more fleshed out character it allows us to care where her story goes or ends.

They escape the shelter and the storm breaks the next day and Alicia buries the family, Charlie says she can see Madison (played by Kim Dickens) in her. They find a car Alicia has Charlie close her eyes and paints a mental picture of going to the beach for her and Charlie is able to remember her parent’s faces. They go to find the others but the mansion empty and the bridge where Charlie left John (played by Garrett Dillahunt) wrecked. Charlie wants to go search but Alicia dryly states they’re gone and things won’t get any better.

The entire time Alicia was describing the beach to Charlie I was waiting for her to put a bullet in her head ‘look at the flowers’ style. Unfortunately any positivity she gained is gone and Alicia has written off the others. You’d think after losing her family she would at least want to hope her apocalypse surrogate family could still be alive. Alicia doesn’t want to find them but they’ll find her hopefully she’ll be happy about it.

Quotes/Thoughts

“Things don’t get better and they’re not going to. They’re only gonna get worse till we’re not around to see how bad they can get.”

These episodes that focus on one or two characters are always great for character development.

“If you’re in this house with me then I’ll probably kill you. I don’t know if I want to kill you I just know I probably will.

Even if the others forgive Charlie for killing Nick, the fan base may never truly get past it.

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