Fear The Walking Dead Season 3 return off to a shocking start

BRUTALITY, bloodshed and intrigue — Fear The Walking Dead’s season three return had plenty of shocks and surprises.

TAKE a bunch of knives, guns and zombie brains, add in plenty of racism, suspicion and intrigue and you have a recipe for a stunning return for Fear The Walking Dead.

The second half of season three took off at the ranch, where the Native American Nation, led by Walker, arrived to share the area with the Doomsday Prepper ranchers.

If you’ve not caught up yet then look away, because we’ve got plenty of spoilers coming!

Qaletaqa Walker wants a new start at the ranch but things don’t end happily in this world.

This was a double episode start and the pedal was pressed to the metal right away. The metal was also pressed to zombie heads right away, with Troy and Nick finishing off a gang of them just in time to see the Nation convoy arriving at the ranch.

It was all thanks to Madison handing over Jeremiah Otto’s head to Walker to finish the feud between them. But if Madison and Walker though that was going to bring peace between the two groups, then they had about as much brains as a zombie that’s had its head go under a steamroller.

Interestingly, Madison seems content to sit back and let Jake Otto seem to be the leader of the ranchers, when it’s obvious that she’s really the one calling the shots when crunch time comes.

It also gets some nice friction between herself and daughter Alicia, who is sleeping with Jake.

Of course there was going to be violence and friction, led by Troy, who has worked hard to create the reputation of a psycopath and wasn;t about to let it go now.

After getting some poor fat schmuck to try and shoot some of Walker’s people, he flips when Madison and Walker arrive to disarm him.

Madison should have shot Troy when she had the chance.

Somehow he and Nick end up in a last stand, where he saves Nick’s life and Nick eventually convinces him to surrender by admitting he killed Troy’s dad. However, Nick could have easily finished it by knocking out or shooting Troy earlier, which seemed to make far more sense.

Still, it enables Madison to twist Walker’s arm and get Troy merely banished, while Nick gets to spend a day in a hot box as punishment. Obviously Walker and his people must have been fans of Bridge On The River Kwai and the ways in which the Japanese used to punish Allied prisoners of war.

Troy insists that Madison drive him off to banishment as he “trusts her not to kill him”. Coming from a nut bag like Troy, that should have set off red flags and alarms galore but Madison thinks it’ll all be fine.

Naturally Troy kills his guard — by shoving his already wounded hand onto a knife and then using it to stab the man. For a few moments it looks like he wants to kill Madison too — but it’s obvious he has a Mummy Complex going and actually wants her to kill him.

Naturally she refuses to do so and makes him walk off to exile.

You idiot! He’ll be back and he’ll stuff things up and kill someone important. You just know it. Madison might have taken on the Rick Grimes role in this show but she’s yet to learn how to act like Rick.

Anyway, with that drama stored away for another day, she discovers the ranch is running out of water.

Cue water fights between the Nation and the ranchers, while Madison and Walker go off to find more water.

Leaving aside how dumb it is to send the two leaders off on a dangerous mission, we see Alicia trying to step up and be more of a leader — and Jake really struggling. He’s looking sick and either he’s going to die or be pushed aside in the future.

The ranchers think Nick is a hero. The poor fools!

Nick, meanwhile, seems to take on a leadership role to focus the ranchers’ anger at a bunch of “Injuns” coming in to take what’s theirs, goldarnit. He’s like the leader of the resistance while Walker has handed over control to an angry bloke called Mad Dog. I mean, what could possibly go wrong there?

We also jump down to the dam, which Lola has taken over after Daniel bumped off Dante and his goons. She wants to do things nicely and hand out free water, while Daniel is supicious of other people. He’s right to be. He’s also still looking for daughter Ofelia, who we know is hooked up with Walker and back at the ranch.

Daniel has to convince Efrain and Lola to get a bit nastier at the dam.

Naturally attempts to be nice don’t work out well and things start going downhill at the dam. Daniel’s warnings are coming true and it’s time to take off the Mr Nice Dam Lady T-shirt and open up a can of whup ass.

This leads us to Madison and Walker arriving at some Mad Max-esque Mexican market, where you can buy or sell anything. Run by a guy called Prester John, it looks like a fascinating place but it appears the series won’t be staying here long (more’s the pity).

Naturally Strand is there, in big trouble, and Madison risks everything to save him. Makes perfect sense. After all, he only lied to them, betrayed them and deserted them. Why wouldn’t you do everything to rescue him?

Victor Strand is up to his usual tricks.

He says he knows where they can get water — at a big dam. Oh, this is going to end well ...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Alicia sees she can’t keep the peace so she starts digging a well for the Nation, so both sides get a well each and everyone is happy.

Nick and Mad Dog are about to attack each other — until Nick decides that well digging is a much better choice.

Everyone immediately puts down their weapons and goes off to the dig the well, which is a nice happy ending but a little unlikely.

Anyway, the ranch looks to be coming together while the brown icecream is about to hit the fan down at the dam.

Can’t wait to see it happen ...