Fear the Walking Dead recap: 'La Serpiente' 

Every unforgettable moment, every gorgeous dress.

Ruben Blades, Mercedes Mason, Cliff Curtis

hits a ditch in the road filled with sludge and begins the slow slog to getting back on track. It happens every so often, though the first three episodes of the back half of season 3 have been uneven. The first had a lot of action but was fueled by dumb decisions; the second was more clear in its mission and execution; and this week’s third has less momentum, allowing time to reflect on the lack of tension and creativity in getting Madison, Victor, and Walker from point A to point B.

The trio needs water, and the dam has plenty of water. That much is clear. So, we begin with the trio riding their water tanker toward Tijuana, where they’ll find Daniel and Lola, both of whom don’t care too much for Victor. First, they hit a line of bumper-to-bumper cars on the highway and the herd of walkers that were once their human drivers. Spying a sign with the words “Jesus saves” spray-painted on it, Victor takes out his beeping keychain and flings it off the road to lure the walkers, but that seems too easy and raises a lot of questions.

The beeper can’t possibly be loud enough to lure a whole group of walkers off the highway, especially when there’s a giant, revving truck with the stench of three humans in it idling in front of them. Even if it were, wouldn’t the sound of the truck scraping by the abandoned cars drown out the beeper and lure the walkers back? It seems like too much of a magical fix.

Alas, it works and they’re able to slip into a car lot and shut the gate to the walkers. Though they’re trying to bust through, Victor leads them to a red car, under which is an entrance to the sewers. Walker is still wary of this man he doesn’t know, but Victor promises this is the fastest route and the walkers will have cleared out by the time they get back. Madison’s loyalty to her friend leaves little room for debate, so they all descend into the darkness below.

We linger in the tunnels with them as Walker becomes increasingly more impatient over Victor’s aimless leadership. He’s trying to look for the symbol of an open eye, the mark workers at the dam use to find their way through this maze. But he gets them all lost. Madison reminds Walker that Victor saved her family, but when they encounter walkers trapped in the tunnels, Victor still has nothing, and Walker ducks away to find his own path.

Alone, Victor finally confesses to Madison that Daniel is alive and at the dam, “saltier” than ever. She’s not worried, though, because she can make good on his promise to deliver Ofelia. Victor then spies the mark, but Walker hurries towards them, warning that the walkers are in pursuit. The sound of their snarling echoes through the tunnels, and the camera creates tension by cutting between the group crawling in the muck on their hands and knees to the darkness behind them. It slowly dissipates, however, when they reach an engorged walker clogging up the pipe.

Perhaps I’m becoming numb to these predictable jump scares, but this one didn’t pack a punch. Meanwhile, the sound of walkers behind them stops – and with it the urgency to save themselves – and all that’s left is for us to watch Madison hack away at this gnarly corpse, spewing blood and puss, until the water trapped behind it bursts forth. It made me pine for those moments when these characters are frantically trying to save themselves from a seemingly impossible situation with their backs against a wall, not knowing who’s going to make it out and who won’t. This wasn’t one of those times.

When they arrive at the dam, Daniel is fleeing a situation that’s boiling over. Their latest attempt to deliver water to the people ended in a shootout when Daniel opened fire on a group of rambunctious rioters. With a wounded friend in the passenger seat and a crowd of pistol-wielding villagers at their backs, Daniel and Efrain bicker over how the situation went down and how Lola should handle things moving forward.

As they’re re-chaining the gates to the dam, Daniel notices something moving in the bushes. He fires his gun and finds Victor cowering on the ground. Daniel raises his weapon to shoot again, but Madison steps out with Walker. She tells him how Ofelia is safe at the ranch, how Walker saved her from the desert, and how they are now desperately in need of water.

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