Fear The Walking Dead is not only staggeringly stupid, it’s started ripping off old stories from The Walking Dead. It’s embarrassing and it’s hard to watch. In ‘Blue Jay’ we get a weird combination of gruesome ultraviolence (which I’d normally welcome in a zombie show) and bizarre storytelling that leaves me baffled and annoyed at every turn.

We deal with three returning main characters this episode: June, Dwight and Sherry. All three have been working for PADRE for years, but June has broken off because Something Bad happened and she’s gone rogue. Her nickname is Blue Jay. Dwight’s is Red Kite. I can’t remember what Sherry’s is and I don’t care. These bird names are ridiculous. They’re not just codenames used over walkie-talkies (all hail the mighty, magical walkie-talkies!) but in regular day-to-day speech. Because sure, that makes sense. We learn that the rat-faced woman from the last episode is Shrike.

Remember, the leader of this group of Bird People is called PADRE. I guess they were just stuck with that, but it doesn’t fit with the naming conventions of the rest of the group. I suppose Vulture was already taken by the gimmicky Season 4 villains. These villains, like every other group since Chambliss and Goldberg took over, are little more than a cartoon gimmick, and this episode continues to solidify just how preposterous they are.

June has left PADRE after working for Shrike on various gruesome experiments in order to study the zombie infection. This is an idea we’ve seen used in The Walking Dead a number of times. At one point, a man named Adrian who is trying to get her to help him find his daughter, Hannah, discovers her in the train where these experiments are taking place—and she’s a zombie! Which is just like the Sophia reveal in Season 2 of The Walking Dead, but much less shocking or emotionally powerful. Adrian ends up committing suicide by way of zombie daughter which is portrayed as this big, emotional scene but isn’t because A) we didn’t know or care about Adrian and B) it was just super obvious what he was going to do.

The only really new thing here is Shrike using Adrian’s zombified head to bite Dwight and Sherry’s kid, Finch (good lord these bird names) in order to force June and them to work for her and PADRE since she’s the only one who can cure him.

This is so damn stupid I don’t even know what to say. First off, Shrike hasn’t found a cure yet and this kid only has like an hour tops before he turns into a zombie. There’s no way that works as incentive. Holding him hostage might, but effectively killing him doesn’t. If this show has Dwight and Sherry and June discover a cure . . . .

Dwight’s reaction is at least realistic: “I’ll kill you!” he screams at her. I hope he does.

Speaking of Dwight and Sherry, the worst couple on TV does not disappoint. Remember, they were first separated by Negan and then Dwight spent years tracking her down across the United States before finally finding her. At this point, she basically told him to kick rocks: She had a new group now and wasn’t interested. It was quite cold and made me dislike her instantly. Mind you, it’s fine if she felt that way but she approached it so horribly and then—worse—played mind games with him.

Eventually they got back together and Sherry got pregnant. Apparently they were scooped up by PADRE on their escape rafts and decided to not only hand over their baby, but work for PADRE separated from one another for the last 7 years, until just before the events of this episode. They never told Finch they were his parents. Finch, like Wren in last week’s episode, is supposed to be 7 (Wren is 8) but is obviously played by a kid much older (he looks about 12).

The showrunners and writers apparently think it’s super normal for people to start a family in the zombie apocalypse and then just give up their baby to the first group of bird-named weirdos they come across. And then, after years of struggle to find one another and fall back in love, split up again. Just because.

I don’t like Dwight and Sherry, but I’m offended on their behalf nonetheless. This is not how real people act. People fight for love. They fight to stay together. They don’t give up their children to strangers without a fight. It’s utter nonsense. What an embarrassing excuse for a TV show. All I feel is scorn.

Scattered thoughts:

I can’t even like the good things about an episode like this. As per usual, there’s some nice cinematography. I even think the leads this episode did a pretty good job and Sherry didn’t bother me as much as usual. The shocking scene of a zombie head biting into a little boy who’s under anesthesia (DRINK) should have been a powerful, shocking, resonant moment but I was so irritated by all the crap that came before by that point that it just felt gratuitous and stupid, especially because Shrike’s reasons for doing it—to incentivize them to help her—make no sense.

Also, she said “PADRE wants to keep all the children as safe as possible” literally twenty seconds before doing this, so yeah. Sure. Whatever. All I know is it’s a good thing I’m not playing this drinking game right now or my review might be as jumbled, nonsensical and stupid as this godawful show.

What did you think of ‘Blue Jay?’

P.S. I need a bird name to sign off with for the rest of this season. What should it be? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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