There's still a lot to like with Fear The Walking Dead. With a core of great performers, shows can overcome quite a bit. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful that the show continues to remember to give these actors good stuff to do, and not so quickly rely on the genre conventions and ever-familiar beats that we get each week with the original series. Fear needs to keep working to be different instead of rushing to look, feel, and move in the same ways as its cousin series.
Though it featured fewer walkers than the low-key premiere, this second helping of "Fear the Walking Dead" was far more intense, suggesting that series creators Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson might be able to take their spin-off in some enjoyably dark directions over the next four weeks.
That slow escalation of visuals is going to work out really well for the show. We know what the world outside looks like. We know what the world of The Walking Dead looks like. Watching one become the other is going to be satisfying.