'Fear the Walking Dead' Recap: 'When Civilization Ends, It Ends Fast'

Warning: This recap for the “So Close, Yet So Far” episode of Fear the Walking Dead contains storyline and character spoilers.

Save one tense trip to Paul R. Williams High School that proved Madison is quite capable of defending herself and those she cares about from the undead, this week’s episode was low on action, but full of moments where members of the Clark and Manawa fams realized that this little virus that’s going around is looking more and more like what we zombie-educated know it to be: the apocalypse.

Travis, Madison, and Nick

Picking up from the trio’s discovery last week that Calvin was in a state where he could not be killed (no matter how many times Nick ran him over with Travis’s truck), they barrel out of the viaduct (more on that below), deciding that they need to gather up their loved ones and vamoose to the desert, where they’ll be safe (safer?) until everything they’ve witnessed can be pieced together into some sort of logical explanation. That may be a while, though, because as Nick points out after checking for news reports on the radio, “no one’s talking about this.”

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Alicia and Matt

Good news: Matt didn’t stand Alicia up for their date at the beach. Bad news: When she arrives at his house and finds his front door standing wide open, she proceeds inside and finds her boyfriend with a 103 degree fever and in a severely incapacitated state.

When Travis, Madison, and Nick show up shortly thereafter to pick her up, they notice Matt also has a bite mark on his neck — is this the way the illness is spread? They assume so, and despite Alicia’s protestations about leaving her boyfriend alone (his parents are out of town), Travis and Madison insist Alicia take off with them, because Matt simply isn’t safe to be around. Matt seems to be aware of his doomed state, too; he tells Alicia he loves her and says she should leave.

Chris and Liza, and the Drugs

The Clarks are together, but obstacles remain before Madison and Travis’s blended clan can flee La-La Land: 1) Travis must gather ex-wife Liza (who doesn’t want to hear what he has to say about the strange goings-on around them), 2) Travis must gather son Chris, who a) is ignoring Travis’s calls and b) has wandered into the middle of a protest in the streets of L.A. that is becoming increasingly chaotic after cops repeatedly shot what the protestors think was simply an unarmed homeless man (zombie!), and 3) Madison needs to get her hands on some drugs to help ease addict Nick through his withdrawal, but she can’t get in touch with her doctor for a prescription.

Travis’s solution: He’s hitting the road to pick up Liza and Chris. Liza resists, at first, when he arrives at her house, but when they talk to Chris on the phone and see a TV news report on the protest, they go on the hunt for him. That leads them to downtown, just as another lumbering, glossy-eyed being won’t halt when a gun-wielding cop tells her to. Shots ring out, the crowd freaks, and Liza and Travis spot and grab Chris just in time to be a part of the crowd that’s fleeing the scene, screaming, with riot-control cops entering the location and a police helicopter flying overhead.

They take refuge in a barbershop that’s closing for the day, just as a full-on riot breaks out in the area, with people looting, rocking cars, and destroying property. The barbershop’s owner (Ruben Blades) isn’t thrilled with his guests, but his wife and daughter convince him to let TLC (Travis, Liza, and Chris) ride out the riot, as it finally dawns on Liza and the others that the bug and the shootings that have been in the news lately are connected, and will have a bigger impact than they might have guessed.

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At Casa Clark, Madison and Alicia try to help Nick through his DIY detox (hurling and buckets are involved), but Madison realizes where she might be able to get drugs to help Nick: at the high school, of course.

She arrives at the school’s empty parking lot — PRWHS had been shut down because of the shootings in the premiere — and goes into Principal Art’s office to swipe his master keys from his desk. They get her into the school’s crime prevention office, and after prying open a locked cabinet, she scores: bags of various pharmaceuticals that have been confiscated from the students, including a bottle of what we will later learn is Oxycontin.

And then a figure appears in the doorway, behind her.

Tobias!

No, not an undead… it’s Tobias, Madison’s student, the one whose knife she confiscated in the series premiere, who — thanks to a lot of time on the Interwebs — was already miles ahead of everyone in identifying and preparing for the mayhem unfolding around him. Maddie explains why she’s there, and Tobias reveals his mission: “Cafeteria food is designed to survive a nuclear strike. It expires in, like, the year 3000,” he says, which is why he’s loading up on giant cans of mixed fruit and chili, so he and his uncle will have food to see them through what’s ahead.

He also gives Madison a crash course in Apocalypse Survival 101: Looters start with pharmacies, gun shops, and liquor stores. Also, go out as little as possible to minimize being exposed.

She comments that Tobias appears to be stocking up to sustain him and his uncle for a while. “It’s going to be a while,” he says. As he and Madison wheel his cart of cafeteria booty towards Art’s office so she can return the keys, Tobias continues dropping his apoca-knowledge. “The desert will be safer. Things will fall apart now,” he says. “It’s all gonna go to hell, and that’s what they don’t get. When civilization ends, it ends fast.”

In the principal’s office, a noise pops up on the PA system. Tobias says it’s one of “them.” He and Maddie take off, pushing the cart through the double doors so familiar to high school students and listeners of John Mayer songs, and that’s when they spot it. Art. Principal Art, or Artie, as Madison calls out, only to have him turn around and begin lumbering towards her and Tobias, all glassy-eyed, with his mouth in impending chomp mode. Yep, Artie’s been bitten. Now he’s looking for lunch, and not the fruit cocktail on Tobias’s cart.

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As Art advances, Tobias realizes what he has become, and Madison slowly does, too. Art gets his hands on Tobias, and in the ensuing scuffle, they both tumble down a set of stairs, with Art landing on top of Tobias and furiously trying to munch on him. Maddie spots a fire extinguisher and runs down the steps and bashes Art with it. He’s knocked off of Tobias for a second, but climbs right back towards him, teeth gnashing. Maddie swings the extinguisher again, harder, and from the sound we hear — think Letterman tossing melons off a building — we can assume Maddie has knocked Art off, and out. Permanently, finally.

She and Tobias head out of the school — without his food cart —and she drives him home, clearly shaken by the fact that she just had to kill her colleague. And probably a little frightened, and emboldened, that she knows she’s capable of it.

She offers to take Tobias home with her, but he says she needs to go take care of her son. If she doesn’t realize it yet, we viewers do: Her successful — relatively speaking, of course — run-in with Art aside, she needs Tobias at least as much as he needs her. Here’s hoping they both realize that ASAP.

So Close, Yet So Far

Madison’s back home, and gives Nick a pill, telling him she has enough to wean him off his addiction until they head off to the desert. She spots blood — Art’s — on her jacket, and slips into the bathroom to try to wash it away. She starts to break down, and then the phone rings.

It’s Travis, telling her he’s with Liza and Chris. He wants her and her kids to leave for the desert without him, saying he’ll catch up. Madison refuses. He assures her he’s somewhere safe, but then she hears an explosion and gunshots… and their phone connection goes dead.

Alicia sees her mom upset, and wants to know what’s going on. Before Maddie can answer, they hear screaming outside. One of their neighbors is chasing another neighbor, just like Art chased Madison and Tobias. Alicia bolts for the door to go help, but Madison stops her and blocks her from leaving.

Alicia doesn’t understand why, but Madison knows all too well what could happen if Alicia leaves their house.

Infectious Info:

* Because it’s not every day that a viaduct plays an important role in a TV series, the appearance of one in FTWD had me obsessing all week about the Marx Brothers’s famous viaduct/”Why a Duck?” routine. If you don’t know it, check it out now. If you do, here’s an excuse to watch it again.

* Favorite moment of levity: When Nick is station-surfing on the car radio for any mention of the impending disaster, he comes across a DJ talking about a “catastrophe of Biblical proportions.” Turns out it was a report on a football player injury.

* Poor neighbor kid Gladys: All the guests for her 9th birthday party canceled because of “that bug going around,” as her mother put it, so she didn’t get to enjoy her crayon-themed bouncy house. Also, she’s a nine-year-old in 2015 named Gladys. Oh, and then her family was apparently eaten by turned neighbor Pete. Worst. Zombie Apocalypse Birthday. Ever.

* Gladys’s mom, to Madison, about the fact that her little girl is turning nine: “That’s so scary!” Oh, Gladys’s mom, you have, er, had, no idea…

OK, Dead-heads, let’s hear your reactions to “So Close, Yet So Far”: Was dropping off Tobias the worst move ever? Will Travis, Liza, and Chris ever get out of that barbershop and back to Madison’s house? Will anybody make it to the desert before L.A. is in total chaos? Did we see the last of Matt? And Madison and Nick have shown they can take care of zombie business when necessary… do you think the other members of their family are as capable?

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.