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Fear the Walking Dead finds god
In This Episode ...
We open on Jacob, a rabbi who is living in a synagogue, going through the motions of religion. He goes outside to kill a zombie that is interrupting his shabbat ceremony. He finds a couple more that are trying to get into a car. One tackles him, and the car door flies open, smashing the zombie's head. Charlie had been hiding in the car. Jacob invites her in.
After a good night's sleep, Charlie is feeling refreshed. She left her people last night, looking for something. (We later found out that she ran away because she was tired of constantly being on the run. She wanted a real home she could settle down in.) She saw the light and went toward it. He explains it is the Ner Tamid, the eternal flame that indicates the presence of god. He has been keeping it alive with car batteries, and he panics when this battery -- his last one -- is nearly dead. Charlie offers to help, and calls June and John. She admits that she ran away, but she believes this synagogue is the place she was looking for.
John and June come, with car batteries, and save Jacob's eternal flame. June and Charlie go outside to fix the fence, and Charlie tries to convince June that this should be their new home. June has lots of reasons why this place isn't right, but Charlie doesn't believe her. She believes it was a sign that she saw the light and ended up here. Back inside, Charlie reiterates her belief that this should be their new home. June doesn't believe her, and neither does Jacob.
We learn that Jacob lost his faith way before his flock turned. He claimed that he left to get supplies and when he came back, his congregation had all turned. It turns out he had a crisis of faith and left. He wandered around the town, looking for a reason to believe. When he returned several weeks later, they were all zombies. Jacob locked them in the adjoining school because he couldn't bear to kill them -- and he still can't. The group hears the fence fall and soon they are trapped in the temple, surrounded by zombies.
They can't wait it out, though. A call comes in on June's radio. The caravan has spotted several of Logan's goons, and they had to escape. They need June and John to return with the SWAT vehicle. John comes up with a plan. From the roof of the temple, they will crawl down a ladder onto the roof of a car, then use the ladder as a bridge, moving from car roof to car roof, until they can get to the SWAT van. They almost make it. When they attempt to exit over the fence, the fence collapses, taking the ladder with it. It is time for Charlie to give up the hope of making this place her new home.
Jacob blows the shofar, luring the zombies into the temple. June and John lock them in, and Jacob and Charlie escape out a back door.
Meanwhile, the caravan has split up to try to lose the goons. Sarah and Dwight are in the tanker, and they run out of gas under an underpass. The goons arrive, and Sarah and Dwight prepare for the worst. The goons just stare at them ... then the SWAT van shows up, and the goons take off. Our friends think the SWAT van scared Logan's people away, but as we later learn, this was all a setup. The goon squad was simply trying to chase the caravan as far away as possible from Logan, who is going into a quarry, which he calls the promised land.
I'm with Charlie
I never understood why they didn't find a place to settle down. I'd be frustrated with June, too -- looking for some "perfect" place that may or may not exist. It seems to me that with some hard work, you can turn almost anyplace into a perfect place.
Judaism and god
I feel kind of sorry for people like Jacob, who are so blinded by their belief in religion or a god or something, that they would put themselves into danger in the hopes of pleasing an entity that doesn't exist -- or that they cannot prove exists. Besides put it all on the line for batteries to keep the "eternal flame" burning eternally, he kept his congregation undead because he felt he would be a failure if he put them -- and himself -- out of their misery.
I did like that, instead of a Christian crisis of faith, there was a Jewish crisis of faith. It's about time TV was equal-opportunity. Now all we need is a Muslim questioning his belief in a god, and we have the big three covered!
I thought for sure June and John would get married in this episode
After all, they spent the episode with a rabbi, and they seem to be the kind of people who would want a "traditional" ceremony.
Zombie Kill o' the Week
I was impressed when the caravan ran over a single zombie straggler. The first one dropped it to the ground; the second one smushed it up a bit; the third turned it into pulp. By the time the last car drove over it, it was little more than a wet spot on the grass.
