Fear the Walking Dead season 5, episode 4 review: Skidmark

This episode of Fear the Walking Dead focuses on Salazar and his cat, while also putting a few other pieces of this season’s puzzle into place.

On Fear the Walking Dead, Salazar assigns himself with the duty to disarm traps set around town. The warehouse’s former occupant wired guns to shoot down survivors looking for goods in shopping centers. Salazar and Skidmark the cat are righting that wrong, but he still holds a grudge against Strand and refuses to lend out his plane.

Strand sends Charlie on a covert task inside Salazar’s compound and ends up in the back of his car during one of his outings. Strand sneaks in with Sarah and Wendell to steal the plane only to be one-upped by Salazar, who removed instruments from the cockpit. He also knows that Charlie is in his truck yet continues to take her for a ride along.

Their trip doesn’t turn out as planned, and a small herd follows Salazar’s getaway vehicle. Feeling empathetic toward Charlie, Daniel orders her to drive his car with the plane parts back to Strand, while he creates a musical distraction. Strand apologizes to Salazar over the walkie for the time he gave him misinformation about his daughter Ofelia, who wound up dead before Salazar could reach her.

Salazar is prepared to die as the horde closes in on him when help arrives. Unfortunately, the SWAT truck’s guns are jammed, so it is up to Strand to save his old acquaintance. Strand has the plane on the back of a truck and turns on the propellers to draw the dead toward him. He cuts the walkers to shreds but damages the plane in the process.

Back at his place, Salazar has made peace with Strand. Salazar leaves the plane, his residence, and all his supplies to Strand and the group. He asks Charlie to look after Skidmark and secretively departs for some other business he needs to take care of.

At the truck stop, Dylan tells Morgan that he saw “the others” at a camp and pinpoints their location on a map. Morgan and Alicia scout out the area and find no signs of life. Meanwhile, Dylan’s siblings hide in bushes when they spot an armored individual taking down walkers. The unknown threat recently compromised one of their zombie roadblocks and could also be the one who kidnapped Althea.

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Max and Annie contact Dylan, who spills the beans to Morgan that his brother and sister are alive. Morgan and Alicia follow the new coordinates and save the teenagers from biters yet are quickly surrounded by their group of lost boys. Their parents were the ones the group found deceased during the visit to the camp grounds in “The Hurt That Will Happen”.

The orphans are fearful of the armored men, and all of them watch as their adversaries fly away in a helicopter. The kids tell how they saw them arrive in the aerial vehicle and question if they are leaving because they got what they came for. Are they taking Althea with them? Could these be the same people that picked up Rick and flew him away in the last season of The Walking Dead?

Weekly Walkaways

• Aside from a potentially major connection to Rick Grimes, did Fear just reference The Walking Dead’s Abraham? Salazar told the group that a friend asked him to keep a cigar for when things get better, and Abraham was particularly fond of cigars. This would only be possible if they met during one of Salazar’s hiatuses in Fear and before Abraham joined Rick in The Walking Dead.
• Old Man Salazar and young Charlie riding together in a truck has a resemblance to Wolverine and X-23 in Logan. Both men are weary warriors who grow attached to their companions and are willing to sacrifice their lives for their survival.
• And another (probably unintentional) movie reference goes to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. A group of armed kids protecting each other in a post-apocalyptic wasteland latch on to a brave father figure. Is it just a coincidence that this episode happens to be the first time Morgan (Mad Morgan?) mentioned his dead family in Fear the Walking Dead?
• A theme of this episode is receptivity. After the teenagers kept dodging Morgan, and Salazar turned his back toward Strand, the latter finds forgiveness and even embraces Strand, while Dylan opens up to Luciana and tells the truth. In the end, the larger group of orphans decide not reject help anymore and accept Morgan and Alicia.
• The MVP of “Skidmark” is Salazar for his fearless attitude and his heroic undertaking. First, he disarms dangerous booby traps for the good of humanity like a post-war mine deactivator. Then he leads the dead away from Charlie and offers Strand’s group the resources to recover their friends.

Fear the Walking Dead returns next week with “The End of Everything” on Sunday, June 30th at 9:00 p.m. ET on AMC.