Fear The Walking Dead: You CAN’T Go Home Again
By Liam O'Leary
If there’s one message we can get from Fear The Walking Dead’s mid-season finale, it’s that you can’t go home again…
“Now, what do you mean by this?” you might ask. Well, what I mean is, even more than the end of the first season, I feel like the mid-season finale drove the point home to The Group that having anything resembling the life they knew before, was impossible.
I feel like, from this point forward, The Group will be faced with the increasingly bleak future of finding themselves in a zombie apocalypse with no permanent base, no true shelter, and no real protection against either the living or the dead.
But, “home” is more than simply a place, it’s an idea: An idea of how society and how we as a part of it, are supposed to behave. “Home” is normalcy. From this point forward, The Group needs to realize that even they themselves are not going to be the same as they were when all of this started.
“Home”
Let’s get this out of the way first: As of this moment, The Group has no place to call home.
With the hacienda en fuego, the only base they’ve had since leaving Madison’s home has been destroyed.
Now, obviously, Strand’s plan was to take himself, Madison, Alicia, and Ofelia back to The Abigail, which has been their base/means of conveyance throughout this season. All in all, a solid plan.
…Except, there’s no guarantee that the boat is still where they left it, is there? Sure, Nick managed to retrieve Luis from there, but, who’s to say that it’s still there now? It’s been a day (give or take) by the time the hacienda burns down since Nick found Luis, that’s plenty of time for another survivor, or perhaps someone from the Mexican Navy (Coast Guard?) to swoop in and make off with the boat. For all we know, by the time Strand and the ladies return, there may not be a boat to return to!
What this means is, The Group may, for the first time in the apocalypse, be left without any form of semi-permanent shelter, being left to make due with whatever shelter they can find, regardless how insecure it may ultimately be.
How will they handle it? How well will The Group (Or, at least, what’s left of it), deal with not having any prospects, nor even a solid base from which they could attempt to build a future?
Will they be able to make the best of it? Or will it make tensions rise and cause them to fracture even more (Something they can’t afford to do, by the way)?
Chris
I’m just going to go out and say this: Chris is in big trouble. He is a solid lock for Deputy Mayor of Crazytown (I don’t think he’s old enough to run for Mayor yet, but, if he could, he’d be a solid lock for that, too).
While Travis managed to find Chris and stop him from hurting a kid, the fact that Chris was threatening to do that at all shows us just how far he’s fallen. He’s dangerously close to crossing a line he can’t come back from, one where he finds killing an easier solution to his problems than trying to settle them peaceably. The fact this even seems to extend to people he seems to consider “family”, only makes it worse.
And, again, while Travis was able to bring Chris back from the cliff, the fact remains that he has a long road before he’s normal again. A lot of work needs to go in before Chris can truly exit Crazytown and not pose a threat to himself or others.
Furthermore, Travis will have to live with the fear that the good kid he knew as his son, perhaps, may never come back completely. Even if he’s not a threat anymore, he knows that the apocalypse, and the loss of his mother will forever change his son, and not necessarily for the better.
Nick
Of all the members of The Group, Nick might be the one most altered by zombie apocalypse, and The Group’s present circumstances within it.
When we left off, Madison watched from the truck as Nick faded into the distance, masked in smoke and shadow, indistinguishable from the infected, save for the direction he walked in.
Frankly, Nick’s “in amongst the gorillas”, as it were, seeming to see more in common with them than with his own family or his group, evidenced by saying “We’re the monsters” upon seeing the hacienda in flames.
How is The Group going to get him back? Can they?? What, exactly, can they say to not only get Nick to rejoin them, but, to shake off Celia’s influence and remember what he himself had informed the rest of The Group of, namely that the infected are dead!?
This is how far Nick has gone. While his existence before the zombie apocalypse began was nothing to write home about, this could prove to be worse: Seeing people (Including his family) as monsters, and living amongst the undead, believing them to be anything but what they really are. How long can he do that before he becomes unreachable completely?
But, “home” is more than simply a place, it’s an idea: An idea of how society and how we as a part of it, are supposed to behave. “Home” is normalcy.
Even if The Group is able to convince Nick to return, will he be the same? Will he be able to help them fight the infected? Other people? Or will he be forever under the belief that the infected are just “changed”?
When we begin the second half of this season of Fear The Walking Dead, it will be with The Group scattered, at least two of its members drifting into uncharted territory (Dangerously close to Crazytown), one possibly dead, and possibly with their one hope of escape or sanctuary gone. With this being the case — scattered, without a base, and desperately clinging to sanity — they will learn for certain that anything resembling what they left behind is gone. They’ll learn they can’t go home again.
Next: Fear The Walking Dead: Does The Zombie Apocalypse MAKE People Crazy?
What do you guys think? Do you think The Group will ever find something they can call “home”? Is it even possible? Let me know in the comments! And, if you like this and want to read more of my writings, specifically about how to survive a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!