RECAP: Fear The Walking Dead — The World Starts to Crumble [Episode 1]

I am completely prepared to be more horrified, more fearful, and angrier while watching this prequel than I have been while watching #TWD. We open to a world where the sun shines exactly as it did the day before, and rush hour traffic is a pain in the ass to all whom are still ignorant of that fact that soon they will soon miss the sight of snarling traffic and miss the camaraderie of a stalled highway filled with drivers and passengers desperately making their way to work and back home. Newly initiated survivors won’t know to avoid the gurgling, bleeding, and gasping walking dead. They won’t know that the face in front of them is no longer a loved one, but the embodiment of a walking virus whose only mission is to replicate itself, destroying all life as it goes.  

The pilot is centered around Madison Clark – a harried, skeptical, high school counselor joined by her live-in partner, Travis, a teacher at the school. They struggle to convince their respective children that the new family will work. Madison’s daughter, gluten free, finicky, pissed off Alicia is a poster child for teen angst while son, Nick, is the first in the family to witness the world in transition, though his worsening heroin addiction makes him a flawed witness. We open to Nick waking up, looking for “Gloria” his girlfriend /drug buddy. An abandoned church has become a  drug den, where Nick wakes up to find their drug haven  populated by seemingly dead people, covered in blood and bites. He watches in horror when he realizes that Gloria  is not a missing victim but the source of the blood. She is still feasting  on a human corpse when he finds her.

Despite his addiction, Nick clearly has a strong will to survive. We watch him tear off through the church and down the road to avoid being attacked by his undead beloved as he is hit by a car, landing him in the hospital. I immediately being thinking of #TWD’s Bob Stuckey, who struggled with alcoholism even after the fall of humanity. Is Nick the new Bob? At the hospital, Nick is assumed to need a psych consult and perceived to be on a heroin high. He refuses to tell the police, who have been called to his room, about the assaults he reported when he first arrived at the hospital.  

Madison is less than friendly to L.A.’s finest and throws them out of her son’s room. She tries to save her son, who doesn’t want to be saved, by making what we can see is an all too familiar phone call to a rehab center. While discussing where he needs to be, both of Madison’s children are openly hostile to Travis. Lucky for him, he receives a call from his ex- (Liza) about their son, Chris – who seems to be torn between accepting the reality of his new family and anger at the amount of time his father puts into rescuing Nick. I’m already TeamLiza, who shows real concern for Nick and tries to mom-manage Chris’ hostility toward Travis. Chris does not want to visit his father and Nick and Alicia don’t want Travis’ help. All I can think is when the apocalypse hits, I might want to see Travis and Liza on the run, together, leaving Maddie with all three children.

While at work, Madison ignores the seeming paranoid, anxiety-driven warnings from an honor student named Tobias, who has been frantically  following the news of some odd medical condition hitting five different states, that no one is able to explain. He sees the end coming, citing the line that there is safety in numbers, gloomily predicting that no one will get to do anything they made plans to do, including go to college as he had hoped. He is convinced the end is near. “Maddie” does not believe him. The early assumption is the missing students are out with the flu.

Maddie assumes she is safe since she had a flu shot. Oh dear. While Travis stays with a completely unappreciative Nick, Alicia is hanging out with her boyfriend, Matt. Their happiness is a clear indication that he will be an early victim (#TWDFormula). Nick continues to insist what he saw  was real, telling a skeptical Travis everything.   

Sure enough, Nick’s fears that he may be insane lead Travis to check the church, alone, at night, with a flashlight… damn! Seriously, wouldn’t you avoid the place just because a building  full of highly addicted people just doesn’t sound safe? He finds one freaked out addict who begs not to be killed and runs off. Travis yells out to find out if anyone is around. Yeah. Not good. He finds blood and human tissue on the floor,  before leaving. This show should be called “Fear the Living Who Don’t Yet Understand The Walking Dead.” I nearly lost my dinner waiting for him to be bitten. The next morning, Travis has a hard time convincing Maddie that Nick needs to know he didn’t just imagine things. She tells him that he has to stop enabling Nick… pot, meet kettle. She tells him that he is trying to help Nick as a substitute for making things right with Chris. Nick’s addiction means that he should be the first walker victim in the family, but I am starting to root for Maddie (yes, yes, harsh).  

While the adults focus on Nick, we watch Alicia and Matt together and it’s clear that her life has been defined by her brother’s addiction. Matt offers to cheer Alicia up after school by taking her to be beach to watch the sun set and then  go back to his place, since his parents are out of town. Either this school has a low attendance rate overall or roughly half of Travis’ students are missing. While his home life is a crap show, Travis is a gifted teacher who connects well with his students. He warns them (and us) that nature always wins. Which side is “nature” on, we have to wonder. Ours, or the walkers?

At the hospital, a restrained Nick hears a wheezing patient on the other side of the shared curtain in the room. The nurse tells him that the patient is ok.  She agrees to untie one hand in order to collect a urine sample from him. Attempting to free himself, he drops his bed pan, the sound of which seems to send the patient next to him into cardiac arrest.  Once the crash cart and team arrive, he finishes freeing himself and escapes. Addiction or not, I want this guy on my team… I think. He gets it that something is wrong and he is a man of action.  

Well, at least it seem that way until he tries opening cabinets as if to look for drugs. Eventually he makes a clean escape. Realizing that he’s gone, Maddie rages. Since no one will help them, she tells Travis to take her to the place where it all started. Against his better judgment, he takes her.Maddie begins to blame herself for Nick’s problems when Travis reminds her that Alicia is ok. She becomes distraught as she sees how her son was living. Travis finally drags her away but she decides to stop in on one of Nick’s old friends, Cal, to find out if he has a clue where her son is. Travis takes a moment to try to reach out to Chris, but the call goes to voicemail.  By evening Maddie and Travis are still searching when she suddenly realizes that she may not want him to come home. She is tired of waiting on a call from the morgue about her son. As they are talking, it is clear that they should be paying attention to what’s going on outside.  Traffic is at a standstill and helicopters are flying overhead.  The are stunned as shots ring out.

Whatever happened, by the next morning, even fewer students are in school and news footage is beginning to leak, and Maddie and Travis realize that it’s exactly the scenario Nick described earlier. The search for the wayward son intensifies. Students are released for the half day and Alicia is asked by her mother to be home, waiting in case Nick comes back. As more  helicopters fly overhead, students are sent into the streets, unknowingly as walker bait, and buses are loaded. An angry Tobias and a shocked Maddie make eye contact.

We see Nick entering a restaurant, where he meets up with Cal, who is not as apple pie as he seems. He is Nicky’s supplier. Nick thinks the drugs he got, earlier, were laced and relates the story of the church, which Cal refuses to believe. Ultimately, Cal gives “Nicky” more drugs and begins driving him around. He drives to a secluded river drainage channel – asking if Nick talked to the police. When they stop Cal goes to the trunk, and  pulls Nick from the car shortly after. They fight for the gun Cal grabbed from the trunk and Cal is killed. Nick calls Travis to pick him up,  not realizing that Maddie would be with him.  All three go back to look for Cal, but  the body is gone.  

Maddie and Travis think the drugs are again causing Nick to meltdown, until they head back to the truck and undead Cal approaches as they start backing  their way through the tunnel. Maddie and Travis try to help him as Nick warns them to stay away from him. Cal reaches out for Maddie, to bite her, Travis pushes him away and Nick backs over Cal with the truck. Of course that doesn’t stop him. Cal gets up again.  

Nick  then pushes Cal forward with the truck, tossing him. Bleeding, broken bones, flesh ripped apart from twice being hit, Cal looks back at them, walker snarling as he looks at them.  No one, except Nick, believes what they’re seeing.  This, my friends, is how it begins. I will see you next week, as reality begins to set in for our mixed up dysfunctional survivor family.

 

“Like” us on Facebook “Follow” us on Twitter and on Instagram