Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: Gloria vs. Bunny Slipper Girl
By Susie Graham
Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead both start with walker girls that inform the stories and the audience about the shows they were about to see. I’ve been quite fascinated with both shows’ first walkers. I find it very interesting that the first walkers also serve as the first words of each show: Little girl! Gloria!
I’m very taken with Little Girl and Gloria and I think they play a huge role, not only in their episodes, but in their entire series. I’ve written quite a bit about bunny slipper girl and I’m so very pleased with how Fear the Walking Dead has used Gloria to start its series.
Their 3 minutes on screen at the start of each series, alone with one of the main characters we are about to meet give us so much more information under the surface of the dramatic scenes that play out in front of us. Both scenes are suspenseful and thrilling and spectacular ways to start their series.
Both scenes include zombies. I’m a big believer in stopping the zombie shame! Our shows are zombie shows. I know that they are about how the characters survive and deal with the crumbling of civilization. How they protect their families. How they deal with basic needs. How morality shifts. All those philosophical things. But our shows have zombies. Let’s embrace them. There are philosophical questions directly related to the zombies, too.
Little girl is important to start The Walking Dead because it lets us know that the show is going to be about survivors who know what these things are and how to take care of them. Rick’s face tells us he knows she’s a zombie, he feels bad, but she is a threat, she is to be put down and put down without hesitation. Rick is confident in his calling of the little girl and telling her he can help her. And he even does help her with his gunshot.
Gloria is important to her show, Fear the Walking Dead, because she tells us about how the characters we will meet are going to handle the apocalypse that we are already aware of because of the show we already love. Dramatic irony! Nick calls out for Gloria questioningly. He doesn’t know where she is or symbolically what she is.
When he sees Gloria and she turns around with the blood on her mouth and he sees the horrific scene with the man she was munching on, who, as my co-blogger, Tracey, pointed out, looks similar to bunny slipper girl, with his half-smile-eaten-face, there is absolutely no recognition on Nick’s face as to what Gloria is. Nick doesn’t register pity for Gloria as Rick did. Nick registers panic and fear.
Nick doesn’t put down Gloria the way Rick put down little girl. It didn’t even occur to him. He runs away. The people in Fear the Walking Dead are going to do just that–fear. They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t recognize the threat in front of them the way Rick did.
I like that Nick doesn’t kill Gloria, even in a sloppy or accidental way. To me that is representative of the show at this point at least for the first season. They don’t know that killing is the only option. Who knows? They might try to restrain them or cure them like Hershel did. We may even see Gloria again.
Little girl and Gloria. Zombies. Our zombies. Our introduction to our two zombie worlds. First walkers. First words. Symbols of what is to come.
More about Little girl and Gloria:
Next: Everything we know about Fear so far
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