‘Eddie and the Aviator’ starring Flight 462’s Brett Rickaby

Brett Rickaby, the zombie on the plane, in Flight 462 plays Eddie in a short film that was the final project of the late producer and writer Sean Whitesell.

Brett Rickaby shared the link for his short film on Twitter and I was intrigued by it enough to want to share it with our readers and write a bit about it. Brett was the infected aboard Flight 462, the mini-series webisode that brought the characters of Alex and Jake into the fold in season 2 of Fear The Walking Dead. 

Brett is a very interesting and affable man to chat with on Twitter. He wanted to have a walker record with his infected Marcus, so I bestowed several walker awards upon him in an article of Flight 462 Walker Awards. 

Eddie and the Aviator requires a few viewings, but it is quite an interesting little short film. It’s only 14 minutes long. I got a little something different out of it on my second viewing. It’s a sad story. I know it’s supposed to have a message to it, I’m just not sure that I’m getting the right one.

Even so, I’m going to put my thoughts out there for Mr. Rickaby and for you to open things up for a larger discussion. Mr. Rickaby said he was open for theories and seemed pleased that I might write about it so I shall.

You can watch the short film on Brett Rickaby’s website here:

I think Eddie said it best at the end. You never know who’s on edge. We never know what other people have experienced to bring them to where they are. I often talk about this when writing about The Walking Dead. I like to observe, describe and explain people’s behavior and why they might act the way they do.

Often people think I’m defending their actions, when I’m simply explaining them. They have reasons that they are behaving in certain ways even if their behavior is not wise.

Eddie has many reasons for his disposition and the way he has turned out. It’s sad and unfortunate. It’s a terrible cycle from the way his father acted. As a child he had such joy and he had dreams. But his father and the world shut those dreams down.

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He learned how to deal with his anger from his father. We saw that in the many ways his actions mirrored his father’s. Calm and then choking.

He still had that spark of a dream in him now, but it was so tiny it didn’t have much of a chance. When I first watched the short film, I thought the Aviator was happy with life as it was and Eddie was resentful or jealous of that. He wished that he could be happy with the way life turned out.

The second time I watched. I saw the Aviator as more of a taunt-a bully. He was happy and he accepted life as it was, but he poked at Eddie. He said someone should have toughened him up. Eddie was plenty toughened up. The Aviator’s name was ironic since Eddie was the one who looked to do the dreaming and flying and the aviator was content to be on the ground.

Toughening up seems to be the self-appointed job of some folks. They think they need to toughen up others. Eddie got toughened up without intentional toughen-uppers to help. His dad, his classmates, the girl and now the Aviator. The Aviator’s laughter and jokes were just as hurtful as Eddie’s father’s insults and neglect.

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In Paula’s email story on The Walking Dead of the boiling water, some people, like Eddie, are the eggs. They go in soft and come out hard. An uncooked egg and a hard-boiled egg look the same. You can’t tell which eggs have been through the boiling water of life by looking at them. You never know who’s on edge.