Fear the Walking Dead: It’s doing everything right

For so long, in anticipation of Fear the Walking Dead, the feeling was more of guarded optimism but there was definitely uncertainty. An “I wonder if the new show is gonna be any good.” I’ve always had hope because I have such trust in The Walking Dead people. But now that so much more has been revealed, I’m even more confident. It seems to me that they are doing everything right for it to be a fantastic companion to The Walking Dead.

It is not trying to distance itself so much from the original as to not be recognizable as being related. We want it to be related to The Walking Dead. Reporters are sure to ask, “How is Fear going to be different from The Walking Dead?”, which will force the people in charge to focus one ways it differs in order to answer the question. Sure it will differ, but it will also be true to the original and it has maintained many similarities such as posters, trailers, understated actors, and the same zombie rules and world.

The timing of the spin-off is smart as well. It’s far enough into The Walking Dead that going back to the time of zombies looking like Amy and our emotions in the place of Andrea shooting Amy and Morgan not being able to shoot his beloved Jenny will be much more of a contrast to Deanna saying, “Do it!” to Rick to put down a non-zombie Pete in a world where we’ve started killing the living and we’ve encountered groups who had even started eating the living. Father Gabriel is such a contrast as well, but thrown into the “post-post world”, we can’t even feel for him anymore it seems.

In the original show we started with bunny slipper girl. A brutally, startling scene to let us know what world we were entering, Then we went back to some happy burgers and fries and learned of the walkers through Morgan. We experienced the early times with special scenes like, “I’m sorry this happened to you.” And reading the wallet contents of the organ donor whose guts covered Rick and Glenn. But bunny slipper girl was in the back of our minds the whole time. We knew killing zombie children and geeks was what we had to do.

With Fear, we don’t need a bunny slipper girl scene. We’ve had 5 seasons of bunny slipper girl scenes.  We know what those people in Los Angeles are in for with these monsters. We know what they don’t know. My favorite thing–dramatic irony.  Dramatic irony–the thrill builder of suspense. Fear will be the Hitchcock movie of the apocalypse.  Thrills, suspense, goosebumps.  Yelling at our television screens. You idiots! I can see it now.

I’m sure Fear will evolve. But for the first season, and perhaps the first 2 seasons. it will explore the time of Jenny and the time of Otis putting walkers in the barn. An emotional time. The walker kills might be sloppy, inept attempts. We will watch the badassery develop instead of watch it make a grand entrance. I also love the idea of people not knowing yet and doing normal things and discovering walkers among them not knowing what they are or what’s wrong with their friends or family or coworkers

I’m getting more and more excited for Fear the Walking Dead. I hope I’m right about them doing it right.

I also can’t wait to find out…

Fear: first words

Fear: what they will call the walkers

Fear: not zombies

Fear: catchphrases

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