Warning: Full

"So Close, Yet So Far" was quite the apt title/descriptor for this episode, as so much of it involved the usual "one step closer, two steps back" approach to the zompocalypse that can easily drive viewers mad.Putting it simply, the opening beats here involved a panicked Travis formulating a plan to pack up food and water and get the hell out of LA (not that it would do anyone any good in the long run, I realize) and ended with none of them even remotely close to getting out. And - I hate to say it - a lot of it had to do with the fact that Travis and Madison had to deal with teenage bulls***. Like Chris not answering his phone and then getting swooped up in a crime scene protest. Or Alicia not wanting to leave Matt's side.

Alycia Debnam-Carey Talks Fear the Walking Dead

I get that some of these characters don't know what we know. Of course. But the strain of us being so far ahead of the game really began to take its toll this week. And so even though some of these actions didn't seem stupid to the characters in the moment, they did to us. Of course, it would also have helped if Madison actually told Alicia what she and Nick saw out in the LA river. Like, an actual specific description of what went down. With these types of disaster movie situations, when information could be a key motivator, we tend to get a lot of "I'll tell you later" or "There's no time, we gotta move" type dialogue that only serves to keep people in the dark. And making bonehead moves.As predicted, Nick's drug addiction and cold turkey withdrawals became one of the big reasons the Clarks stayed put and didn't make any headway out of the city. Ironically though, it was also his convulsions that stopped Alicia from trying to go back to Matt's house. Man, I was so happy she went back to tend to him because I was in the midst of an epic facepalm. Because at that point, pure and simple, I was overloaded with obstacles. I get that without obstacles and hurdles, there's no show , but this was almost too many people doing the textbook "horror movie split up" at once.At least Travis - despite him also not spelling out for Liza what he'd seen in the last episode - was able to get on the same page with her relatively quickly. She may not have known about zombies, but she seemed to have enough sense to rally around getting their son out of a possible street riot. So that storyline, aside from the traffic Travis faced (which is already terrible two days in), moved along with reason and intent. And it also brought the Salazar family into the mix, as Travis got his family inside a local barber shop for shelter.So where were the zombies at this week? What did the threat level look like? Well, it was a big shift from episode one. As that one greasy, spotty kid Tobias foretold (while he acts as the show's de facto exposition giver), civilization crumbles apart rather quickly, and things were already reaching nightmare levels. Though not because people knew what what's actually going on. Some thought it was a virus while many didn't realize that if they were sweating and coughing, it was too late.And that led to some of the most effective moments here. Travis watching his neighbor packing, but then also seeing him hack and wheeze. Seeing the family across the street getting ready for their girl's bouncy house birthday party, and then later seeing an attack on their front lawn at night. The way Madison closed the door on Alicia at the end, refusing to let her go try and help. And, most importantly, not going to help herself. Like, a very anti-Rick Grimes moves. After she faced down an undead Art at the school, and bashed his brains in with the fire extinguisher, she was now only about protecting her own.And it's an interesting dynamic to think about. Rick never went through any of this. He woke up from his coma still as altruistic as ever. So it's normal that he'd clash with people who'd been through this type of hell and were now super selfish and survivalistic. Madison's already reaching that point and she's only one day into the chaos. It's kind of a cool thing to witness. Along with the fact that these freshly risen zombies are much harder to kill. You can't easily break through their skull and take them down, which led to the episode's most intense stand-off where it looked like Tobias was a goner. Madison was extremely shaken afterward. Enough to leave all that food behind, anyhow.