‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 8, Episode 3 Spoiler Review: “Odessa”

This review may contain spoilers for Season 8, Episode 3 (“Odessa“) of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead – the spinoff to The Walking Dead.

Fear the Walking Dead is going all in on the mysterious secrecy vibe for its final season, with episode 3 (“Odessa”) shedding light on the biggest mystery so far, PADRE. TV shows don’t get this far without interesting characters and trust me when I say that the characters in this final outing are just that, both old and new. Such as Maya Eshet’s Shrike who is perhaps one of the strangest and most interesting characters seen so far, with this episode sparing no exception.

Episode 3 is extremely character-driven and despite the lack of walker-killing action, it manages to keep you interested and invested in what’s happening. One big reveal is that the parents of the children stolen by PADRE over the years have all teamed up with Rubén Blades’ Daniel Salazar acting as leader. This episode perfectly provides a look at the parents’ view of PADRE through convincing performances that truly sell and make you emotionally invest in what they’ve gone through.

Related: ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 8, Episode 2 Full Spoiler Recap

Kim Dickens’ Madison Clark shines in this episode as it properly dives into her newfound storyline as an ex-PADRE child napper. Madison has never been fully on the goody-two-shoes side of the protagonist’s life as she has been seen on many occasions doing absolutely anything to keep her family, friends and self safe, no matter the cost. This is a character trait that is utilized well in a way that makes you feel against her at one point perfectly placing you into the mindset of a child who discovers Madison both kidnapped her and killed her birth mother. While working for PADRE that is, as it is briefly shown in a flashback scene to an earlier episode.

Zoey Merchant proves in this episode as perfect casting for Morgan, aka Mo, as she manages to carry scenes while also carrying fellow cast members by delivering a captivating performance that keeps you immersed the whole time. Merchant and her fellow younger cast members manage to sell the children’s perspective of the PADRE storyline just as well as the cast portraying the parents.

Related: ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 8, Episode 2 Spoiler Review

The big whopper, aka spoiler, is that PADRE isn’t what anyone thought it was and is actually just run by Eshet’s Shrike and her brother Ben. The reveal is a little bit of a letdown when compared to the theories conjured up by the fandom, however, it ends up making sense as to why PADRE is so obsessed with kidnapping children away from their parents. The big bad PADRE is just a group of children taken away from their parents by children, kind of, who had their parents taken away from them.

What The Walking Dead and its spinoffs such as Fear the Walking Dead do best is create new and interesting antagonists. Whether it be a group of orphaned children who are run by two young adults lashing out at the world or a man who can single-handedly rule the world with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, this universe never fails to deliver new threats that are worse than the zombies.

Season 8, Episode 3 of Fear the Walking Dead manages to outdo previous episodes with almost zero walker-slaying action, just pure character-driven gold throughout that keeps you watching until the credits roll – four out of five stars from us.

4 out of 5 stars.

The third episode of the final season of Fear The Walking Dead is available to stream on AMC+