Fear The Walking Dead, The Door: Things To Note

1) This episode begins with a recap of the last few episodes of Fear The Walking Dead. I wonder: If this episode had been the midseason finale (As it was originally intended to be), would we have gotten this recap?

2) The very first line we hear in this episode (That isn’t part of the recap) is from a movie, where a character in it says, ” I wouldn’t do that if I were you, John.” This is ironic because John Dorie is watching the movie.

3) In fact, the entire scene John’s watching revolves around a cop up against a corrupt mayor, with another character warning “John” that the mayor’s minions (Who are all crooked cops) will remove anything identifying him and that he “…will have accomplished nothing”, which roughly parallels John’s own reasons for leaving Lawton (In this season’s sixth episode, “Bury Her Next To Jasper’s Leg”), following Cameron’s death, Janis taking the rap, and Virginia’s covering up of the whole sordid affair.

4) In a telling display of John’s state of mind, as he sees a walker wash up at his cabin, he guns it down without hesitation, a far cry from the skittishness he had about using his guns on the dead when we first saw him at his cabin, back in season four’s “Laura.”

5) Carrying on with the “movie in the background parallels the in-story character’s situation” theme of this scene, “John”‘s wife(?), Ann, tells him he doesn’t need to sacrifice himself against the crooked cops because the movement he’s leading is galvanizing around him, paralleling what Morgan tells him later in this episode.

6) John’s desire to commit suicide is something we saw him mentioning back in “The Key” when discussing the lengths his dad went to to ensure a bad man faced justice, as well as his inability to live with the idea of letting Virginia’s railroading of Janis (And covering up of Cameron’s murder) stand.