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Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 Ep. 10 Review: Trust Is A 4-Letter Word

Serious trust issues make our heroes their own worst enemies in AMC's Fear the Walking Dead S08E10: "Keeping Her Alive." Here's our review...

From what we saw heading into AMC's Fear the Walking Dead S08E10: "Keeping Her Alive" (directed by James Armstrong and written by Nazrin Choudhury & Calaya Michelle Stallworth), the band was getting back together to get on the same page before Troy (Daniel Sharman) comes calling. But even having Dwight (Austin Amelio), June (Jenna Elfman), Sherry (Christine Evangelista), Victor (Colman Domingo), Dove (Jayla Walton), Daniel (Rubén Blades), Luciana (Danay Garcia), and Madison (Kim Dickens) together doesn't mean that things are going well. A lot of folks – like Daniel – still have some issues with Madison, especially with how she just kinda walked away from PADRE after brow-beating Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) into a no-win situation that she couldn't escape. And while we feel for Strand and what happened to the new life he built for himself, we can understand why kidnapping Troy's daughter, Tracy (Antonella Rose), would have folks wondering what his intentions are – and questioning if the old Strand has returned. The result was an episode that showed that our survivors continue to be their own worst enemies – still victims of what Dove raged about in the last episode. But what made it all the more frustrating this go-around was that we better understood why they would make the decisions they make. They don't trust each other – and that stems from a ton of baggage that none of them ever properly got to go through until now. With that in mind, we're throwing on the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" sign and throwing down an image spoiler buffer as we take a closer look at the first of the series final three episodes (with a two-hour, two-episode series finale set for next Sunday).

Fear the Walking Dead S08E10: "Keeping Her Alive" Thoughts

Minus Madison, this scene best represents the state of affairs among our survivors heading into this final run – and this exchange between Victor and June is brutal. But June definitely has the higher ground in this situation – considering it wasn't that long ago that Victor was having people thrown off the tower. That said, the group's inability to let go of the past is potentially dooming them once again – because with Trpy looking to take PADRE, handing over someone like Strand doesn't make practical sense.

Okay, serious points go to Victor for coming up with yet another "Victor Strand" way of getting out of a nearly impossible situation. Removing Tracy's blindfold so she can get a sense of where PADRE is was a nice touch when it came to making it impossible for them to return her to Troy. And that move where Victor freed his hands, disabled the boat, and then made a deep-dive exit was some serious pirate-like action on Domingo's part – he made it look fun.

Did we really need a heavy metal music video of Madison sledgehammering walkers? An odd choice for an already short episode… but Rose's Tracy won me over with the way she pushed back on Madison regarding Troy (and I liked the way that Dickens had Madison almost seemed almost knocked off balance by the way Tracy responded).

Wow! Doesn't anyone trust anyone anymore?!? Normally, I would find this sort of thing frustrating – but that scene with Victor, Madison, Tracy, Daniel & Luciana made sense when you step back and look at the collective distrust that still burns between all of them. Normally, we would be at the point where our heroes would put aside their differences to take on the "big bad," so having everyone going with what they think is the best next move adds a layer of nervous tension I was expecting.

That said, there's a thin line between bad decision-making by a character based on trauma from the past and bad decision-making by a character based on inconsistent writing. Thankfully, this episode was safely secure in the former – but caution's needed, so I hope the writers tread carefully over the final two episodes.

And that's what I was talking about! In a hot second, it went from Madison and Victor being a team to now Madison, Daniel & Tracy heading out and Victor being left out of the deal – and with a slew of walkers all around him. Thankfully, a very familiar-looking military assault truck arrives to mow them down – Althea (Maggie Grace) saving the day, at least symbolically? Because it looks like we've got some new players in the game…

If that's the case and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is truly dead, then I tip my hat to having a group that she saved back at The Tower be the ones working to keep her dream of a better tomorrow going – though we got some serious Star Wars/"The Last Skywalker" vibes when they mentioned wanting folks to believe that she was still alive. In addition, the missions aspect also reminded me of what Morgan (Lennie James) wanted to do when he first joined the series – with the "rescue boxes" and looking to franchise-out help to more and more communities.

That stand-off scene between Garcia and Sharman had that "Reservoir Dogs" tension to it, with the two actors working nicely off of one another. And you can never go wrong when Garcia's Luciana gets a killer mic-drop like like the one she hit Troy with after her "surprise" made their presence known.

Just so we're clear? Madison and Daniel were ready to kill Tracy. Let that sink in for a second…

Okay, so apparently, s**t went down while we were away because Luciana's and Troy's people got into a nasty battle – and with it happening off-camera, AMC Networks got to save a s**tload of money.

And, once again? Madison makes it about her instead of thinking about the "bigger picture," with Victor wrapping up the episode by echoing aloud the very thought I was having at that moment: "This is not the way to end this."

Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 10 "Keeping Her Alive"

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Review by Ray Flook

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8/10

From what we saw heading into AMC's Fear the Walking Dead S08E10: "Keeping Her Alive" (directed by James Armstrong and written by Nazrin Choudhury & Calaya Michelle Stallworth), the band was getting back together to get on the same page before Troy (Daniel Sharman) comes calling. But even having Dwight (Austin Amelio), June (Jenna Elfman), Sherry (Christine Evangelista), Victor (Colman Domingo), Dove (Jayla Walton), Daniel (Rubén Blades), Luciana (Danay Garcia), and Madison (Kim Dickens) together doesn't mean that things are going well. A lot of folks - like Daniel - still have some issues with Madison, especially with how she just kinda walked away from PADRE after brow-beating Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) into a no-win situation that she couldn't escape. And while we feel for Strand and what happened to the new life he built for himself, we can understand why kidnapping Troy's daughter, Tracy (Antonella Rose), would have folks wondering what his intentions are - and questioning if the old Strand has returned. The result was an episode that showed that our survivors continue to be their own worst enemies - still victims of what Dove raged about in the last episode. But what made it all the more frustrating this go-around was that we better understood why they would make the decisions they make. They don't trust each other - and that stems from a ton of baggage that none of them ever properly got to go through until now.

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