It seems that actor Lennie James, who plays Morgan Jones in the franchise of The walking dead (Frank Darabont and Angela Kang, since 2010) and whom we have seen before as Sol in Snatch: Pigs and Diamonds (Guy Ritchie, 2000), the Alan Erasmus of 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002), Lieutenant Nabulsi in The next three days (Paul Haggis, 2010) or Mr. Cotton de Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017), harbors artistic concerns in cinema beyond interpretation.
So far, he has written the episodes “Burnside Knew My Father” (6×21) of Neighborhood police (Geoff McQueen, 1984-2010) and “Between the Cracks” (3×07) from the anthology Screenplay (1986-1993), the script for the television feature film Storm damage (Simon Cellan Jones, 2000) and five other chapters of the series Save me (2018-2020), of which he is also the creator and the protagonist. And, if he had already premiered directing with the episode “Welcome to the Club” (6×02) of Fear the walking dead (Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson, since 2015), now repeats in “Till Death” (7×05).
A new familiar face on ‘Fear the Walking Dead’
From the initial situation, as challenging as you can afford under those circumstances and with the soundtrack by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans (American gods) helping for this, we can say that the showrunners Andrew Chamliss and Ian Goldberg (Once upon a time) they have remembered the spirit of western that they have been impressing on his approach to the zombie apocalypse from the fifth season and, above all, in the sixth and that had already appeared a little in the present at the end of “Cindy Hawkins” (7×03).
According to what they show us in “Till Death”, we can confirm that the survivors of Fear the walking dead disintegrated after the great catastrophe of “The Beginning” (6×16), courtesy of the crazy Teddy Maddox (John Glover), they cross paths with Victor Strand’s (Colman Domingo) gang and they see their faces with him and him. that it is possible to consider already his turn toward complete villainy. Not in vain, there is referential games to remind us of Negan Smith (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). And, this time, it’s up to Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Sherry (Christine Evangelista).
On the other hand, here the possible mirage of the promised land which they call Father, in Spanish, a concept that had already been used in The walking dead with the brutal disappointment of Terminus. And through that unknown place they introduce us to the character of Mickey, played by the recognizable Aisha Tyler (Friends), director of the chapters “Exit Wounds” (2×03) and “Family Is a Four Letter Word” (2×04) of The Walking Dead: World Beyond (Scott M. Gimple and Matthew Negrete, since 2020).
Raw details and eye-catching zombie carnage
The protagonists they change their minds somewhat hastily in their dilemmas, and it must be a matter of the libretto signed by Justin Boyd, responsible for three episodes of Channel Zero (Nick Antosca, 2016-2018) and another in Reprisal (Josh Corbin, 2019), Lincoln Rhyme: Hunting the Bone Collector (Mark Bianculli and VJ Boyd, 2020) and the successful Sweet Tooth: The Deer Boy (Jim Mickle and Beth Schwartz, since 2021), and co-producer Ashley Cardiff, for which it is the fifth of Fear the walking dead from “Humbug’s Gulch” (5×03), which was followed by “Leave What You Don’t” (5×13), “Honey” (6×05) and “Handle with Care” (6×10).
The emotional lurching is not developed with much precision either, and the staging of Mickey’s reunion with the one he was looking for is downright clumsy. Perhaps, Lennie James needs more filming to polish these aspects. But the most striking of “Till Death”, before the roll to lo Team A (Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo, 1983-1987) mixed with aesthetics of western, it is the unexpected sequence of zombie carnage in a gym to the rhythm of reagge from “Welcome To Jamrock” (Damian Marley, 2005), maybe the most brazen that they have given us in the entire franchise of The walking dead.