The latest spin-off of The Walking Dead premiered this past Sunday. The original Walking Dead comics, shows, and video games had a mix of wilderness, villages, and cities in the state of Georgia. Fear the Walking Dead switches from rugged survivors like Daryl, Glenn and Michonne to the unprepared masses How will Los Angeles, the second largest city in America, react to the Walkers?
1Nick wakes up to a Walker
The first scene follows Nick Clark (Frank Dillane), a drug addict who witnesses his friend Gloria eating the flesh of dead people. He thinks he his hallucinating, but longtime Walking Dead viewers know she is now a walker. He runs out to what looks like an empty street, but a car hits him and we later zoom out to a populated intersection. Walkers exist, but they haven’t taken over yet.
2Travis tries to put his house in order
The show follows two families as they struggle with their own problems alongside the catastrophe that is slowly taking over. Teacher Travis (Cliff Curtis) seeks to care for his new fiance Madison(Kim Dickens) and stepfamily, Nick and his sister Alice(Alycia Carey), while trying to keep up with his ex-wife(played by Elizabeth Rodriguez of Orange is the New Black fame) and her son, whom he only calls a few times. He is first seen fixing the plumbing at his and Madie’s house, showing that he has potential to keep things running.
After they visit Nick recovering in the hospital, Travis and Madie try to look for clues about how Nick lived and whom he was running from.
3Nick seeks answers, but Calvin stands in the way
Nick escapes the hospital shambles around in torn clothes and fresh wounds, almost like a Walker would. Nick’s drug dealer Calvin tries to kill Nick to stop him from talking to the police, but Nick gets the upper hand. When Travis and Madie arrive and find Nick, he is worried about killing Calvin. They try to find Calvin’s body, but he returned to life as a walker.
4Countdown to Extinction
The series wants to focus on the personal drama and how the Walker crisis affects relationships. Part of the attraction of this show is looking at how the Walker outbreak would affect Los Angeles.
5Walkers go viral
So far, the walker outbreak is isolated to a few cases. Only a few paranoids, such as some students in Travis and Madie’s school, seem worried about the outbreak that later ends the world. Nick has seen one, but doesn’t know what to make of it. An accident on the highway reveals another Walker who keeps reviving after police shoot its torso. That encounter is captured in a viral video that students watch during glass the day after.
6A shambling introduction
The pace of the first episode is slow. Alicia isn’t given much to do except be a normal high school student, and the viewers don’t hear as much from Travis’ ex-wife and her son.
7Hungry for more
Most viewers already know that the show leads to a breakdown of society. Many of them want the widespread disaster to happen sooner and skip the family tension. Nonetheless, The first episode attracted 10.1 million viewers, breaking AMC’s record for debut episode viewers previously set by Better Call Saul(itself a spin off of Breaking Bad). These viewers are hungry for more.
