The first blast removes most of the walker’s face, while the second blows the top of its head off. This brutal gore effect recalls the stomach-churning films of Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci. Zombie apocalypse confirmed, Madison.
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One of the coolest things about the OG The Walking Dead is how frequently it kills off established characters. Travis was still gone and Nick wasn’t getting any better. This turn of events reflects one of the key thematic considerations of Fear the Walking Dead, that being the danger of ignoring your neighbors’ issues in the hopes of maintaining your safety or mere comfort. While this is going on, Alicia – who stayed behind at the neighbors’ house for a few extra minutes – now has another Walker after her. It’s their neighbor, Susan. That keeps things in a tight way there when they really just want to get away.
It’s then that we get another eye-roll moment. The zombielike gait? Or the hungry look in her milky-white pupils?
At the home in question, Madison is trying to get Alicia and Nick’s mind off the end of the world by playing Monopoly. Clearly, they couldn’t go to the hospital for Griselda. We only see what’s happening from a distance, but it appears that the police are firing on Walkers (a term I’ll continue to use here until the characters settle on some other name to call the zombies). It was so scary, but it turned out to be a dog that was covered in blood. Rather, it’s a dog barking and scratching at the door. Having visited the family across the street, their undead neighbor Peter approaches Madison’s house.
The episode opens with Travis, his ex-wife Liza, and their son Chris where we left them: holed up with the Salazars, in their home behind their barbershop, as the riot sparked by a cops killing an “unarmed” walker rages right outside. Then, in a shocking FTWD moment, they saw Travis drive up. Big mistake! Their recently zombie-fied neighbor has stumbled in and is dining on the family dog. So she ran.
Anticipation for the series had been building since U.S. cable channel AMC revealed Walking Dead creator Kirkman would tell the new zombie apocalypse series. “What did you do?” Travis asks. Chris runs outside to vomit and sees Alicia dealing with a walker. She barely makes it over the wall with Chris’s help, although all he gets is a bloody nose for his trouble. The military arrive just in time to put down Susan and save Patrick. As for the Salazars, Daniel wants nothing to do with the family. Weirdly another tough-looking dude is wheeling out his trash too, but it’s OK because I got the one sliver of humor that this episode was missing. To wit: The Walking Dead has usually been a lot better at treeing than stoning. With all the zombies and shocking stuff going on, though, that’s a bad promise to make. She demonstrates the ability to quickly accept reality, especially when she tries to kill Susan. It doesn’t make Travis a man struggling with humanity and morality in the face of unspeakable odds-it makes Travis a moron and a liability. Finally, as the truck pulls away from the hospital, Los Angeles goes dark. Yeah, we know Madison and Travis are a happy couple together, but we wouldn’t had known the animosity between Travis’s old family and new. Yeah, right.
As for Madison, one minute she’s sympathetic, but not pragmatic: She gives some of Nick’s drugs to Griselda Salazar. She said that she’d help him on Fear the Walking Dead, but he only needed his medicine. Daniel tells Ofelia that this house is safe and Griselda needs rest. Mr. Salazar explains to his daughter good people are the first to go. He leads Madison and Alicia over the backyard fence through a labyrinthine garden and into the house.
But of course things can’t be that easy on FTWD.
Apparently watching your dog become zombie kibble wasn’t enough, so one of you must die to teach the others a lesson. She was about to bite him, but people from the army suddenly shot her and stormed in.
I’m as-yet uninterested in Daniel’s family: They seem to be inevitable zombie fodder, certainly the mom.
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What exactly was Nick attempting to break into the house for? The option of heading to Travis’ place is what the run with and as they circle outside of the city proper they see how the power is going offline. “It’s already too late”.
