‘Fear the Walking Dead’ recap: Be nice or the government will have to shoot you

Trusting the government to restore order during a zombie apocalypse sounds reasonable, right?

When carrying out their draconian orders, however, soldiers with the California National Guard act more like jailers than protectors on “Not Fade Away,” Episode 104 of AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead.”

“It’s safe inside the fence,” teenager Chris Manawa (Lorenzo James Henrie) observes while narrating a video he shoots from a rooftop. “Outside, everything’s dead.” At least that’s what the guardsmen told him.

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But is that true? What about that flashing light on a nearby hillside? And what grim facts do government officials refuse to share with the populace?

“You guys are the lucky ones,” Commanding Officer Lt. Moyers (Jamie McShane) tells a gathering of worried neighbors, saying they’re inside one of 12 safe zones south of the San Gabriel Mountains.

“Be nice,” he adds with a cynical laugh, “so I don’t have to shoot you.”

What Moyers wants are healthy, passive and obedient residents. So when local family man Doug Thompson (John Stewart) suffers a nervous breakdown, Moyers calls on Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis) to head off a messy “situation.”

“Either you’re going to go in and talk him down,” Moyers informs Travis, “or I’m going to go in and take him down.”

Travis succeeds in calming Doug, temporarily. But when Doug once again slips into despair and is found sobbing next to the perimeter fence, soldiers haul him away to an undisclosed location.

“You could have notified his wife, sir,” Travis protests when he learns about Doug’s abrupt removal.

“I’m not a social worker,” Moyers coldly replies. “That’s your job, Mr. Mayor.”

While Travis remains respectful of military authority, his rebellious girlfriend Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) certainly does not. She sneaks outside the well-guarded enclosure to investigate that flashing light on the hill.

What she sees – and smells – are dead zombies rotting in the streets. To her horror, she also discovers the corpses of uninfected people who were apparently gunned down by troops.

Also disturbing to Madison is the sudden appearance of Dr. Bethany Exner (Sandrine Holt), a physician who’s employed by the government.

Bethany claims that the sick and wounded are “in good hands.” But she actually seems focused on identifying potential zombies and making sure they’re trucked off to a so-called “hospital.”

One of Bethany’s patients, or perhaps victims, is Griselda Salazar (Patricia Reyes Spindola), whose foot was crushed while fleeing a riot in East Los Angeles. Griselda must be taken away for surgery, Bethany says, and her husband Daniel (Rubén Blades) is invited to come along.

Daniel fears this will be a one-way trip, however, based on his childhood experiences in war-torn El Salvador. When the military rounded up civilians, Daniel’s father insisted they would surely return. They did return, Daniel found out, when he spotted their bodies floating in a river.

“If it happens, it will happen quickly,” Daniel warns Madison. “Keep your son close,” he adds, referring to 19-year-old heroin addict Nick Clark (Frank Dillane).

Travis’ ex-wife Liza Ortiz (Elizabeth Rodriguez), a nurse in training, makes the fateful decision to tell Bethany about Nick’s drug habit. Now Nick’s name is added to the list of people who must be transported out of the safe zone.

“No,” Madison screams when guardsmen seize Nick and strike him with a rifle butt. “He’s not sick!”

This senseless brutality causes Travis to reconsider his support for the governmental overlords. His confidence is shaken even further when he spies that mysterious flashing light in the distance, just like Chris and Madison did.

So are the guardsmen protectors or jailers? Tragically, it looks like the latter.

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