Ron Underwood returns to the TWD Universe to direct another episode of Fear TWD. He does an amazing job with the direction, the camera work and cinematography are great. The sound editing and musical score is fantastic. Though an impressive production, the good things sadly stop there. The writing is flawed and unbearable at times, at least the dialogue is better in this episode than the previous episode. The fallout shelter set are impressive and claustrophobic, There's plenty of suspension in the fallout shelter and throughout the episode. But the unnecessary smoke and sets outside where the nuclear missiles hit is still looking like a B movie which takes you out of the immersion completely.
June and Dorie's routine in Teddy's fallout shelter is disrupted when they discover the origins of their home and its sinister connections to Teddy's past. That's the premise of the episode and well it's quite a slow burn with not much of the plot progressing, sadly keeping the anthology format with only a handful of characters and for this episode we got Jenna Elfman as June Dorie and Keith Carradine as John Dorie Sr, their performances are some if not the season's best. But that's about it, their story and individual character arcs are interesting but dragging it out with its slow pacing isn't a good thing. The storyline regarding Victor Strand and Morgan Jones is continued in a very small scale. One thing that I really liked in this episode is of course the John Dorie Sr's quest to find out what happened with the final victim of Teddy and learning more of the villain.
"Cindy Hawkins" was overall a good episode, but it didn't meet my expectations. It was better than the previous episode but that doesn't say anything, all the problems that this season is having still exists in this episode. For a serialized TV show, this season have failed immensely on that level. But it's such an artistic episode with truly superb cinematography and direction, with Ron Underwood's visual storytelling. There's much to love about this episode but for a serialized show like Fear TWD and The Walking Dead, an episode like this only hurts the show more than it improves on the show. John Dorie Sr and June Dorie are two of my favorite characters in the show right now but following them for 40 minutes is just a waste of storytelling if we're talking the bigger picture. It needs to be said, though the showrunners have a big plan for Alicia. Keeping the actress and character she's playing, the only remaining cast member except for Colman Domingo and the forgotten Ruben Blades that have been with the show since it's first season, keeping her away from the seventh season is so wrong as she should be the main character and in every episode. Dave Erickson should be hired again, a man can dream. Though a good episode: the writing, pacing and showrunners anthology format drags the rating down immensely. I'm starting to think this nuclear aftermath is a bad thing for the show, the writers aren't skilled enough to handle such a big plot. I hope I'm wrong in the upcoming episodes.
