Fear the Walking Dead: The Little Prince review S5 E6

I’m not used to this level of unreasonable hope in Fear the Walking Dead. The only thing weirder is the unrelenting delusion most of the characters have with so little evidence to the contrary. The Little Prince was an improvement over last week, but the writers keep making the characters behave stupidly for the sake of driving subplots along.

Morgan comes this close to breaking out a round of Kumbaya to encourage Annie and her fellow little orphans to stick around and help them repair the plane. I’m not sure if anyone else has had so many personality changes in this Walking Dead universe. At least I’m sure this hopeful optimist is one of my least favorites. The cheery, rah rah music isn’t doing much for me either.

While this plane repair mission is fine and all, it certainly didn’t seem big enough to fit 12 kids in addition to the regular crew. Since they can’t just ask Siri or watch a plane repair YouTube video, the gang chats via Walkie-talkie with Charlie and Strand on what they need. A Walkie-talkie company really needs to start sponsoring this show so they can talk about the endless battery life and perfect reception even over the mountains and radioactive fallout clouds. Who wouldn’t want a set?

Since one hopeless cause isn’t enough, Morgan tries to reach Grace and convince her to tag along. What part of the whole she’s dying of radiation poisoning is he missing? Onto more fruitful endeavors, Morgan continues his search for a better staff.

Annie still insists they’re not leaving with Morgan’s crew. I get her apprehension about traveling with these incompetent strangers, but she’s annoying. She tells Alicia that their parents had a system when walkers arrived and after three days following the last incident, Annie went to find them.

The parents defeated the last round of walkers, but they got attacked by the radiated walkers, which contaminated them. The parents locked themselves in the camp and Annie’s folks told her to look after the others. She’s taken that message to an extreme. Alicia says she can relate mentioning her mother’s last words and suggests maybe Annie didn’t hear them correctly. But if she insists, Alicia leaves car keys and leaves the decision with her.

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In the episode’s most entertaining subplot, John and Dwight look for Sherry. Dwight shares his back story…to a degree. Yep, no reason to go into a full confessional on My Time With Negan, Dwight. John finds a hidden message from Sherry, which leads them to a house. Dwight is all cheerful and hopeful for the first time — John has that effect on people.

John finds a letter from Sherry saying she doesn’t want him dying over her effectively giving him a Dear Dwight breakup letter. This was a pretty pointless resolution to that subplot. John doesn’t tell him about the letter, but I wonder if that’s not to kill Dwight’s spirits or because he doesn’t want Dwight to stop looking for her?

Love has to wait though as Grace radios in with the first big emergency of the season — the power plant is headed for another meltdown. The plane crew’s generator will help, but only delay the inevitable. Time to get that plane completed ASAP. Morgan delivers the generator and finds his staff still in the back of Grace’s truck. I mean with the right pair of gloves wouldn’t a radiated staff be useful in pretty much every fighting situation?

Just when Strand and company appear out of ideas on how to help the others, Charlie shows them Jim’s beer promotion poster, which has the craziest way for a supply drop ever. OK, I’m not gonna lie. I dug the beer bottle hot air balloon, which was so ludicrous it circled around to being kinda awesome.

I liked the Annie wasn’t swayed by Alicia’s speech and actually took off with the kids and the truck. Annie’s got better intuition than most adults and fully recognizes that this crew is bad news. That was evident by the immediate next moment when Strand and Charlie realize they’re running out of fuel.

Let’s not go into the ridiculousness of piloting a hot air balloon with no experience, but when every other abandoned car on the road apparently has a full tank of gas how in the world could they run out of fuel? The mental hurdles the writers stumble over to drive a plot are frustrating some times.

Naturally, Strand and Charlie land in the radiated area because why wouldn’t they? Morgan goes off to rescue them while Alicia comes up on a massive walker barricade and is determined to go through it to get the kids. This immediately ruins that nice moment Alicia had with Annie if ultimately Alicia wasn’t leaving the children’s fate in Annie’s hands. We’re entering into a subplot where Alicia is going to get some of these kids killed trying to save them.

The Little Prince offered some interesting developments with John and Dwight while Morgan and Alicia seem destined to get themselves in more trouble. At least the beer bottle balloon was fun while it lasted.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Photo Credit: AMC