(Their preferred method of execution involves a bolt-gun, which should be familiar to anyone who’s seen No Country for Old Men.) The rest of the episode is really a consideration of what this means - not just to the overall narrative, but to what the series is about. The title refers to the codeword for the Guard’s ultimate mission, which is to evacuate Los Angeles after “humanely” terminating any remaining human survivors. The only subplot with no real urgency sees Alicia Clark and Chris Manawa breaking into an abandoned McMansion and living like rich folks for an afternoon - and even those scenes have a sweetness and poignancy that have been absent from their storylines all season. Travis Manawa goes to his military liaison Lieutenant Moyers to demand that he be allowed to check up on Nick and Griselda (as well as his ex-wife Liza, who’s been drafted as an emergency nurse). Blades’ Daniel Salazar ties up Hatosy’s well-meaning Corporal Adams, and tortures him to find out the Guard’s secret scheme. But Wiener and company ratchet up the tension this week, forcing confrontations. “Cobalt” is similar to the previous episode in that it establishes the current state of Los Angeles: cordoned off into safe zones, patrolled by soldiers who don’t really seem to care whether the civilians are doing okay. And he’s apparently been cutting deals with the guards to keep only the most potentially helpful folks by his side - one of whom turns out to be Nick. Those who aren’t physically strong enough should surround themselves with people they can use. Her shape.”), he gets across his longstanding worldview: only the fit survive. As he asks about the attractiveness of a fellow prisoner’s missing wife like a David Mamet villain (“Did Maria… keep herself up? Her figure, Douglass. It starts with that Strand monologue, who’s being held in the facility where the National Guard has been keeping the sick and the troublemakers - the place where the junkie Nick Clark and the dying Griselda Salazar were taken at the end of last week’s episode, “Not Fade Away.” The newbie only gets three scenes, which isn’t enough to explain who he is, or why he’s being detained. There’s a wonderfully pungent flavor to Wiener’s dialogue in “Cobalt,” unlike anything this show has served up before. He gets his first FTWD “written by” this week, after serving as a co-executive producer on the first four episodes (and working on The Killing and Last Resort previously). That said, remember this name: David Wiener. Writing for television is such a collaborative process that it’s usually misguided to give credit for an especially strong script to any one person. Because this is the spin-off series’ best episode yet - at times even “best TV of the year” good. That’s not a knock against Fear so much as it’s a big thumbs-up for Domingo.
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