‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Premiere Recap: Prequel Shows How The Zombie Apocalypse Began

The end came near Sunday night on AMC. The people who brought you The Walking Dead are turning it up and bringing it back with Fear Of The Walking Dead, a prequel to the acclaimed series which takes place at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. This time, there is no such thing as a “zombie” only people who are referred to as “Infected,” and the main cast of characters play a dysfunctional family fighting for survival against the walking dead.

‘Fear Of The Walking Dead’ Premiere Recap

Frank Dillane plays Nick Clark, the drug addicted son of main character Madison, played by Kim Dickens. After a brush with his infected girlfriend in the opening scene, Nick runs out in the street and is hit by car, which lands him in the hospital. Madison and her boyfriend Travis have started their lives together with children from different partners and the angst is apparent between him and Nick as Madison plans to put her son back into rehab, believing that he was on drugs when he got hit by a car.

But Travis has problems with his own son, who doesn’t want to see him, although Travis puts in the effort to bond.

Madison is a guidance counselor at a high school. When she comes across a troubled student with a knife intending to hurt himself, she takes him into her office and he expresses his fears about the spreading virus that turns friends and neighbors into flesh eaters. Back at the hospital, Nick admits to Travis about being on drugs when he encountered his infected girlfriend. Why he opens up to Travis, we don’t know. Maybe their relationship isn’t as bitter as it appears.

After Madison and Travis have serious discussions about the infected, they both seem to worry much more about what could be happening very soon. They reconsider how serious the threat of infection is, and Travis travels to the abandoned church where Nick was getting high with his girlfriend to investigate. What he discovers is bloody scene, complete with the gnarled human remains of zombie victims that explain why Nick is having nightmares. Nick doesn’t trust these to be real memories because he was on drugs when it happened. Travis approaches Madison about what he found at the abandoned church and she is indifferent in her response. Travis, however, believes that Nick should know that what he saw was real.

Madison’s daughter, Alicia, played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, is wrapped up in her relationship with her boyfriend and seems to distance herself from her dysfunctional family. She plans a getaway with her boyfriend.

Meanwhile, Nick is planning his own escape, in which he convinces his nurse to loosen the restraints keeping him in the bed. When his roommate’s heart stops, sending the hospital staff into disarray, Nick makes his escape and slips out onto the street.

When Madison and Travis find out about Nick going missing, they launch their own escape mission, and Madison is suddenly determined to see “where it all started.”

When they arrive at the church, no bodies are found. Travis forebodingly exclaims, “They couldn’t just get up and walk away.” But they don’t realize that the apocalypse has already begun, and Los Angeles is erupting in chaos. Emergency workers are responding and cops are shooting walkers on the news.

Nick encounters his own set of troubles when, more strung-out than ever, his drug dealer, Calvin, tries to shoot him in the Los Angeles River. Nick wrestles with him and shoots Calvin with his own gun. Madison and Travis find Nick, and when they arrive at the place where Calvin was shot, they discover that Calvin is a Zombie who attacks Madison. In the end, Nick is forced to finish the job he started with the gun, only this time Calvin is run over by a pickup truck.

How do the two series stack-up? The Walking Dead gave viewers immediate action in its debut with characters surviving in the Bible Belt where the characters seem all too familiar with the use of firearms. This lends a dynamic excitement to the original series where, although the characters are not related, they still struggle to work within dysfunctional relationships. Fear Of The Walking Dead is different. The premiere teases its viewers with false-alarms and moments of eerie anti-climax. The characters have an animosity to one another associated with familiarity. They are teachers, counselors, teenagers and drug addicts. Will they be able to handle the zombie apocalypse with the same kind of grit as the cast of original show that won our hearts?