Geekscape Recaps: Fear the Walking Dead – “Pilot”

Fear the Walking Dead, the first spin-off series of The Walking Dead premiered last night. If you’re not an avid fan of The Walking Dead, fear not! This new series has a new cast, new setting, and little boundaries as to what direction the showrunners want to take. The city in peril this time is Los Angeles, which should make for some good fun. There are plenty of crazy things happening in East LA to begin with. Adding zombies to the mix, well, I’d probably just hang around El Chucho for safety.

WARNING: Spoilers Ahead!

The pilot starts with Nick Clark waking up in what appears to be a church-turned-drug-nest. Chris wanders around the church looking for his girlfriend Gloria when he stumbles upon her eating someone face. He promptly runs out of the church and is hit by a car. Civilians crowd around him and we now establish that FearTWD takes place shortly before the outbreak encompasses Los Angeles.

Early in the episode, not much happens besides establishing our new set of characters. There are some hints here and there as to each character’s personal history and their professions, something we never got right away with most of TWD’s characters. We also get a couple of hints at what’s to come, specifically with principal noticing an increasing number of student absences due to illness. This is interesting considering that we know very little on what caused the initial outbreak. We do know that in TWD, some walkers died of a flu before turning. These walkers were easily identified by their eyes.

Continuing on this subject, we got our first good look at what a walker looks like during the initial outbreak. Despite the “sickness” that’s spreading throughout the city, it does not appear this situation and the walker flu we saw in TWD are related. The most telling piece of evidence is all in the eyes.

Furthermore, Calvin looked more like Morgan’s wife after she turned. It’s possible that we’ll be seeing lot of walkers like this due to the fact that their flesh isn’t necessarily rotting…yet.

Early in the episode, Madison catches a student bringing a knife to school because he’s afraid of, well, zombies. The student also mentions that there are reports in five states. In fact, the school is a significant host to foreshadowing what’s to come. Everything from the student, the principal who cares about the school’s attendance, to the lesson on man versus nature. Travis, who is teaching a lesson on Jack London, goes on to state that “nature always wins.”

Going to the freeway sequence, I found it interesting that Madison tries to use her cell phone. Is it possible there was something more involved to keep the public from calling out? If so, why was the helicopter able to keep their feed going long enough to get footage to get onto the internet? By the next morning, all of the kids were watching the incident on their phones. The news break even prompted the district to shorten the school day entirely.

In any case, reports have been popping up on the internet. The kid being able to deliver the stat that there have been cases in five states is evidence of this. As more and more cases are seen in Los Angeles, it’ll be interesting to see how people prepare for the city’s doom.

Literary Reference!

When Nick’s mom and Travis visited the shooting gallery (the church), they found a book Nick had been reading. Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of twenty two stories mostly centered around one protagonist, George Willard. It was written between 1915 and 1916. Many of the stories deal with isolation and loneliness, both of which attribute to what Nick is going through. Furthermore, the stories reflect on Willard’s increasing independence, culminating with his departure from the town itself. In FearTWD, it’s clear Nick and his family will have no choice BUT to leave.

That’s all for now! Think I’ve missed something? Don’t be afraid to comment! See you next week!