Fear the Walking Dead season 5, episode 3 review: Humbug’s Gulch

Another Walking Dead character crosses over to Fear the Walking Dead in this week’s western heavy episode.

On Fear the Walking Dead, Althea is still missing as Morgan and Alicia’s team cut through countless roamer roadblocks, marking each location on their map to uncover a strategy and purpose.

As John and June stop to cut down another row of dead stringed together by their intestines, someone shoots at them and they are forced to speed through, painting their van with biter blood. Luckily John is familiar with a nearby town – he used to work as a sharpshooting cowboy in an old west exhibition. June peruses the western show pamphlet, asking John what tricks like the San Antonio Split are.

John and June stock up on rifles, shotguns, and bullets before getting caught in a wind storm. They make a quick run to their van and find themselves being shot at again. The eagle-eyed John grazes his opponent with a single shot but loses sight of him in the weather. The man sneaks up behind John and asks “where is she?”. That man is none other than former Virginia Savior… Dwight. Junebug knocks Dwight out from behind and the couple tie him up.

Dwight doesn’t expect John and June to help yet they relate to his search for Sherry, his wife. Dwight has a car that they plan to use in their escape since Dwight shot out the van’s tired. John and Dwight clear a path through the walkers, however Dwight doubles back to the stranded van. He believed the van to be his wife’s and she has been leaving him bread crumbs for him to follow since Virginia. The van is the reason why he has been tracking John and June.

Walkers surround Dwight in the van; John and June use the car’s walkie to convince him to have hope after Dwight believes he’ll never catch up to Sherry. John applies his trick shot skills to shoot down the pack of dead around Dwight. He even performs the San Antonio Split to miraculously save Dwight at the last second.

Elsewhere, Alicia and Luciana are radioing Morgan when they intercept communications between the kids they met in “Here to Help”. One of the teenagers warns Alicia that someone else will hear them and find them. As Alicia searches for the siblings, her tires pop from nails that were hammered into wood and set out on the road.

They travel by foot and are eventually picked up by Morgan. Alicia reaches out one last time for the kids to tell her where they are and receives no response. That night, they meet up with the others at Humbug’s Gulch. Morgan is stunned to find Dwight with John and June. Dwight is nervous that Morgan may have hard feelings about his past, but Morgan reassures Dwight that they are all trying to start over.

Dwight leads the group to a chain of dead that has been preventing him from getting too far out of town. Before they have a chance to break a hole in the line, one of the teens contact Alicia to meet up at the truck stop. They come to the sibling’s van and find Dylan covered in blood. Cut to his brother and sister stringing together a zombie roadblock for an unforeseen twist. Dylan was planted as a mole as the young trio aim to keep our survivors away and wonder why they won’t ride off into the sunset.

Weekly Walkaways

• Dwight’s previous Walking Dead Universe appearance was in The Walking Dead’s Season 8 finale. Once a trusted lieutenant of Negan’s, Dwight was never too happy with his boss stealing his wife and decided to join Rick’s militia. Even though he helped bring down the Saviors, Daryl could never completely forgive Dwight of his sins, considering he killed Denise, among others. Daryl exiled Dwight from the communities, so he embarked on his journey to find Sherry.
• When John has one bullet left, two walkers are coming toward Dwight as he is trapped under a dead man he axed down. John tells him to lift up the axe, blade toward him. John shoots the axe, which splits the single bullet into two and hits both walkers. This move is reminiscent of Deadpool cutting a flying bullet in half to kill two baddies in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Deadpool is a fraction as serious as Fear the Walking Dead, with the former commonly pulling off impossibly outrageous feats. The San Antonio Split is the shows most unrealistic moment ever, no matter how much John explains its improbability. His confidence in expecting to pull off two head shots is just silly.
• This episode is the closest either Walking Dead show comes to a “genre” episode. Not to diverge too far from the tone, showrunners pass on a musical theme and dive head first into the western. The tropes include the characters’ attire, tumbleweeds, a whistling musical score, duel-like showdowns, and a climactic gunfight. Of course the latter is one-sided with the good guys shooting at weaponless zombies. Yet it does end in the aforementioned unbelievable two-for-one shot that fits the western genre better than the show itself.
• The MVP of “Humbug’s Gulch” is John for considerably racking up his kill count. He puts on a show for June, illustrating how he is the fastest gun in the west. He also exhibits his heroic cowboy qualities when saving a man who tried to kill him, all while proving his love for June yet again.

Fear the Walking Dead returns next week with “Skidmark” on Sunday, June 23rd at 9:00 p.m. ET on AMC.