With everything that happens in The Walking Dead, it’s inevitable you may wonder how different things could have been. Today, I tackle that one more time.
It’s a new year! Around this time last year, I delved into a pair of articles that were some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing! In them, I speculated how The Walking Dead would have been different had a handful of little things been different.
Frankly, I’d been hoping for a chance to do another of these articles for a while, but I felt there wasn’t a good opportunity to. And then, Negan, in taking things from The Group in “Service”, ended up giving me the perfect jumping-off point: As he watched Rick’s interview video from “Remember”, Negan tells Rick that, had he met that version of Rick, he would not have bothered him.
Boy, wouldn’t that have been interesting?!
This time around, I will tackle another batch of “What if?” questions that I’ve been thinking about in regards to The Walking Dead and even an unconventional one for Fear The Walking Dead. Each one opening up ideas which could have completely changed both shows as we know it.
As always, I will try to base my theories on the behaviors of the characters as best as we know them. I will base as much as possible on how I reasonably believe their behavior would change had events gone differently. On my Fear The Walking Dead theory I will not because, well…you’ll see when we get to it.
Are you ready? LET’S ROLL!!!
Next: A Day Late, A Dollar Short
What If Rick Woke Up One Day Later?
It’s something so simple, yet, could have possibly changed The Walking Dead as we know it into something entirely different. A simple twenty-four hours difference in Rick waking up could have taken him on a much different and more arduous path.
Imagine for a minute that Rick wakes up from his coma one day later than he actually did. In fact, let’s be generous, and say that everything up his arrival at Atlanta happens the same, just one day later. That means Rick’s departure from the hospital, arriving home, meeting Morgan, getting the guns, finding the horse, all of it happens one day later.
It’s once he arrives in Atlanta, though, that’s when everything changes.
You see, if Rick gets to Atlanta a day later, the helicopter won’t be there for him to see and chase after.
This means there’s a very good chance Rick avoids the herd. Sure, he might still come across it, but, not being preoccupied with chasing a helicopter means he’ll be better prepared to turn back and get out of dodge.
Furthermore, without Rick being more immediate, the herd he would have run into may not even be there, as they may have heard the same helicopter and gone chasing it the day before!
Now, not losing his horse and being forced into the tank by the herd, it’s up in the air where Rick may go searching for Lori and Carl. He could have run into the Vatos, Hell, he may have ended up at Grady Memorial Hospital!
It’s equally difficult to gauge how those encounters would have gone. Guillermo may have been reasonable with Rick, hoping to appeal to his better nature in the hope of getting some of Rick’s arsenal.
A potential visit to Grady…may not have gone so well. Chances are, the lower levels of the hospital would be overrun, Hanson may have already been starting to crack, and Gorman and O’Donnell would still be running amok.
Assuming he was able to avoid the walkers and ensure Hanson he wasn’t dangerous, Rick would find neither Lori nor Carl were there, and be forced to keep searching.
“But, where’s The Group in all of this?”
Well, with the helicopter not being there for Rick to chase, or the walkers to be chased by, chances are, Rick wouldn’t have met Glenn the way he did. In fact, there’s a good chance that, if the herd followed the helicopter, Glenn and company might have just gotten back from their supply run relatively quickly!
If that’s the case, which I’m assuming, none of them are there to meet Rick in Atlanta. Not only that, but, with the herd having followed the helicopter, and Glenn not having stolen the challenger (With its alarm), the herd doesn’t descend on the camp!
If you’re thinking this sounds pretty good, think again. Remember what Merle reminded Daryl of in their brief sojourn in “Home”: That he and Daryl planned to loot the camp that first night Rick was with them.
Without Rick to handcuff Merle, and with no walkers trapping him at the department store, Merle and Daryl are able to execute that plan. What they would have taken we can only guess at, but, I’m inclined to think this would have convinced Shane that The Group was inherently vulnerable and needed to move on to Fort Benning.
Of course, that would have been no cakewalk, either. The Group would have inevitably run into the traffic jam and been bogged down trying to move it. They may have run into the highway walkers, but, with them not going to the CDC, they could have gotten through before they arrived.
Now, assuming they can push through without incident, The Group will end up finding Fort Benning abandoned, if not in outright ruins.
This may push Shane over the edge, as he will be frazzled by discovering that not only is the government not coming to help, but, that his idea for a safe haven is lost.
Expect this to be the point where Shane pummels Ed, who may either get on Shane’s case for his Quixotic quest or even feel bold enough to make a bid for power. If Shane were to have his own “This isn’t a democracy anymore!” moment at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.
What Happens Now?
This is where things start to get blurry. Rick would not give up on finding Lori and Carl, but, unless he happened to stumble on the camp, Morales, or Daryl and Merle, he probably wouldn’t have an idea where to search.
Assuming he did, I don’t think Rick’s journey would be an easy one. He’d likely have to deal with a lot of walkers, and maybe even some of the hostiles The Group actually encountered, perhaps even ones we’ve never seen…
As for The Group, if they were lucky, Shane would either lead them to successfully overtake Fort Benning from the dead, overtake it from hostiles, or make friends with whomever might have been left there and make it their home.
However, even with that, knowing that there was no hope of rescue, that supplies would eventually start dwindling, that hostiles would want to take the fort from The Group, and the inevitable discovery that death, regardless, turns you into a walker, there would be a very good chance that Shane would snap.
While I doubt he’d lash out at Lori or Carl, I would not be surprised at all if Shane would start taking to harshly dealing with anyone who crossed him. I believe that murderous streak we saw in Shane would manifest itself against Ed. I believe Ed would either mouth off to Shane too much or get too rough with Carol and Sophia and find himself “disappearing”.
In this scenario, you could start to see Shane’s world slowly begin to unravel. Sooner or later, Glenn, Andrea, T-Dog, or most likely, Dale would find whatever story Shane gave of Ed’s death suspicious.
While Carol might not have been especially broken up about it, Dale or whoever, would start worrying that Shane was losing his grip.
Somewhere within this extended period, we could see Rick find his way to Fort Benning if either he found some clue, or figured it was the most likely place Shane would take Lori and Carl.
Assuming Rick did, we could expect his and Shane’s collision course to take place as it did in Season Two. Of course, with the bleakness of the situation frazzling Shane even before Rick got there, one might expect the disintegration of their friendship to be accelerated.
Shane would quickly watch The Group, and especially Lori, welcome Rick with open arms, while, at the same time, watching as they grew increasingly more suspicious of him.
Dale would eventually figure out what happened to Ed, and even Carol would start questioning Shane about it.
If Lori became convinced Shane killed Ed, on top of her reaction to learning Shane lied about Rick being dead, things could come to a head quickly. Shane, feeling backed into a corner, could have begun laying out a plan to kill Rick, believing that would solve his problems.
All things being equal, Shane’s plan would like be just as successful in this scenario as it was normally, ending with Rick being forced to kill him.
In the end, if Rick woke up a day later, we could have seen him go through a much more harrowing journey to find Lori and Carl, assuming he ever did. He would likely find nothing at the camp and be forced to have to scramble and search much of Western Georgia in the hopes of finding them. God only knows who or what Rick would encounter along the way…or whether he’d survive.
The Group, meanwhile, would watch Merle and Daryl rob them and disappear. Shane would take them to Fort Benning (And thus, never reach The Farm or The Prison), only to find it not be the sanctuary they hoped. Lastly, with or without Rick, Shane would almost certainly become the same desperate, homicidal maniac he deteriorated into in Season Two, and someone would end up feeling his wrath.
The lives of Rick and The Group would change dramatically, taking them to places and situations we never saw…all because Rick woke up one day later.
Next: A Matter Of Execution
What If AMC Had Paced Season One Of Fear The Walking Dead Better?
That’s right, I’m not going to address a what if scenario involving a element of the story. I will address the possibilities this scenario would have on the story, but the key “What If?” has nothing to do with it. Instead, I’m going to address something outside of the realm of the story, specifically, how Season One of Fear The Walking Dead was paced.
I can’t be the only person who found the pacing of Season One of Fear…problematic. Yes, they were limited to only six episodes in the first season, much as Season One of The Walking Dead was; I get that.
But, am I wrong in thinking that a great opportunity was missed in the way Season One of Fear The Walking Dead was paced?
The first season of Fear The Walking Dead started with three episodes following the first three days of the apocalypse, however, the fourth episode took place NINE DAYS LATER. NINE.
Nine days, possibly some of the most critical days of the apocalypse in Los Angeles, just glossed over. By the next episode, the tenth day, we discovered the city was set to be firebombed two days later. Think about this, we went from the military securing the city to destroying it in three episodes and everything leading up to that decision…we didn’t see.
When was it decided that LA was untenable? What was the catalyst? How bad were things in other parts of the city? These are questions we never got answers to and it left the first season feeling rushed.
If AMC paced the show differently, we could have ended up seeing events we never got to see in the first season we ended up with. This, in turn would have altered how Season Two would have gone and so on.
Now, I could simply leave this theory at that: That things would change, events would be altered or pushed back, but, that would be boring.
I feel like the best way to explore this is to posit an alternative version of how Season One of Fear could have gone, with different pacing. The object being to show how much more could be explored, or how the tone of the show would have shifted if it hadn’t been so rushed.
Obviously, there are all kinds of factors that go into how a show like Fear is paced. There’s the fact the producers didn’t know if they’d get a second season, the need for a logical conclusion in the event they didn’t, whether or not actors would be available for a second season, etc. While some of these I can’t speculate on, I’ll assume at least, for argument’s sake, that none of the actors had schedule conflicts. This will make things a little easier.
Episode Four
To begin with, I think the change needs to happen at episode four.
Suddenly, the story jumps forward by nine days. Fear lost some of the most crucial days of the apocalypse with this jump. Worse still, the show lost a certain sense of urgency. Without seeing things really unraveling, I never really felt The Group were in any real danger until Daniel let out all of the arena infected. That’s backwards.
I think the best way to start is right where episode three left off. Start with the army trying to cordon off Madison’s neighborhood and figure out who’s alive, who’s dead, who’s infected. Ideally, this is where we’d meet Moyers or Dr. Exner. As Madison demanded to know what they were doing to Patrick Tran, they would assure her everything was fine.
And, I believe this should be a theme in this altered second half of Season One of Fear: That everything is fine, everything is okay, everything is under control.
Why? Well, because, we, as the audience, know that that’s not true. Part of the fun of horror shows or movies is knowing what the characters in the show or movie are in for, and, in this case, we know that everything in LA is far from “under control”.
We could see this episode cover a couple of days, and show us some of what Morgan described to Rick during their first meeting. Morgan mentioned that the government was using major cities as safe zones, telling everyone in the area to head to them. This episode would provide be perfect time to show that taking place.
Meanwhile, we could watch as Alicia and/or Chris use the internet to stay abreast of the situation while Daniel relies on a portable radio, none of which necessarily require the electricity the army was rationing. Ideally, they would see and hear Emergency Broadcast transmissions advising everyone in the vicinity to head for San Diego, San Francisco, and of course, LA; The general message being that anyone who goes to these cities will be safe.
I think it wouldn’t hurt to have Daniel begin warning Madison to be cautious of their situation. It would seem odd to Madison at that time, but, we’d know Daniel’s wisdom will hold true.
During this, Nick’s craving for painkillers would continue in the absence of heroine. We could see Nick stealing meds from his neighbor, Mr. Ramirez, here, as we saw in “Not Fade Away”.
Finally, this episode would introduce us to Adams and his unit. This gives us more time to invest in the soldiers as characters and in Adams’ relationship with Ofelia.
If you’re worried enough infected aren’t showing up, don’t. We’ll get to that.
Episode Five
In episode five, maybe around a week after the Nick awoke in the church, we could see things start going haywire.
I imagine this episode would focus a lot on Adams, with him serving as our window into the national guard stationed in LA. We could watch a day in their lives, patrolling an increasingly deteriorating Los Angeles.
We could see just how haggard and frazzled the soldiers are becoming, going on more and more patrols to stem the tide of infected.
Worse still, we would see the more grisly side of the soldiers’ orders: Killing anyone found outside of the safe zones. This would help us not only actually see other people in LA besides Madison’s neighbors, but, also show us just how much having to kill people affects the soldiers ordered to do it.
At the same time, Alicia/Chris and Daniel’s attempts to stay informed end up coming to a screeching halt.
For Alicia/Chris, they discover that the internet has suddenly shut down. Daniel, meanwhile, finds that there is nothing but dead air on the radio (Perhaps not even EAS alerts). This only confirms Daniel’s suspicions that things are not as they seem.
This might be a good time to have Travis’s position as “Mayor” cemented. Travis would be the person the neighbors (But not Mr. Tran, whose continued absence is concerning Madison) begin looking to him to relay their concerns to Moyers, including Alicia/Chris’ worries about an info blackout. Moyers, though certainly not in any sort of genteel way, reiterates what his troops told Madison when they first arrived: Everything is under control.
Moyers would then send Travis away, feeling he’d provided him with a satisfactory answer, but leaving us with the subtle message that everything is not under control.
Season One Finale
We could set this episode at the same point “Not Fade Away” take places: Nine days after the blackout.
In fact, this episode would begin just as “Not Fade Away” did: The army is giving Madison’s neighborhood a ration of supplies, and Moyers asking Travis to help him with Doug.
If you want, you could include Chris noticing the survivors signaling to him. I’m not quite sure I’d want the revelation of what the army’s doing to hit The Group at this point, though.
I believe including Madison or Travis discovering the nature of what the army’s doing would overstuff this episode. Frankly, I have something a little different in mind…
Remember how I said I wanted Adams to serve as our window into what the army was doing? Well, this is why.
I feel like Adams gave us the best natural conclusion for a first season of Fear The Walking Dead we could ask for. In “Cobalt”, Adams revealed that the army had been using the arena as some kind of safe zone, but, people started becoming infected and things quickly went sideways. I believe, rather than just hear that story…we should see it.
As a way of explaining where most of the refugees coming from outside the city were placed, the arena fits quite nicely. The episode could largely follow Adams doing some routine relocating of refugees into the arena when everything goes south.
How the arena breaks down is up in the air, honestly. But, already infected refugees or the army failing to realize death causes zombification are the most likely possibilities.
In any event, the place quickly fills with infected, and Adams and his brothers-in-arms quickly find the situation getting out of control. We’d watch many of Adams’ fellow soldiers fall to the infected in the attempt to hold them back.
Adams would be the focus of this episode. The episode would largely follow him and his unit as they narrowly escape the arena, the dead hot on their heels. Ideally, the episode would end with Adams just barely having enough time to chain the doors shut, but not without the infected desperately trying to break them down and reaching through them, a la the “Don’t Open. Dead Inside.” walkers from “Days Gone Bye”.
With this, I believe you have a very good cliffhanger for Season Two, but, it still serves as a conclusion in case you don’t get one, with the implications of the final scene being obvious.
Obviously, this pushes back the events of Season Two a bit, but, I think we still have room to squeeze the events of “Cobalt” and “The Good Man” (Though, I’d have the infected break out on their own and have that be what formally prompts the army to initiate Cobalt), and still squeeze in most of the first half of Season Two.
Either way, I think this would deal with the rushed feel Season One had, and help make Fear feel like it was actually in a zombie apocalypse by letting us see the carnage unfolding and the government rapidly losing control of the situation. This way, it would feel much more like the world Rick woke up to rather than just an empty one.
Next: People NOT To Mess With
What If The Group Met The Saviors First, Instead Of Aaron?
Oooh boy. I’m starting to like this one already…
As I mentioned at the beginning of this, Negan told Rick that, if he’d met Rick as he was when The Group first arrived in Alexandria, he would not have messed with him. This left me wondering: What would have happened had Negan found The Group at that point?
Well, first thing’s first, depending on who amongst The Saviors found The Group would determine what the response would be.
For example, if “Timmy and The Dick Brigade” found The Group, things could have turned out very badly. Would Daryl blow Bud and friends to smithereens? No. But, I don’t think Rick and company would be very kind to them, either.
My guess: Sasha would cut them down much like she did the wild dogs that attacked The Group in “Them”. This would also make The Group quite wary of anyone going around speaking for this “Negan” guy.
However, things could have turned out quite differently if the first Savior The Group met were someone like Gavin.
I suspect Gavin would likely have offered The Group shelter. It wouldn’t take Gavin long to figure out just how tough The Group was, just by looking at them.
At this point, I must acknowledge the possibility that The Sanctuary could have reminded The Group a bit too much of Terminus. So long as that didn’t happen, I don’t think it would be long before The Group was introduced to Negan
Clever as he is, Negan would almost certainly try to convince Rick and company to work for him, though he would probably try to put as good a face on things as he could. Rick would not be someone to trifle with.
And this is where things could get interesting.
I imagine that, once The Group was confident The Saviors weren’t another Terminus situation, Rick would instruct the others much as he did when they arrived at Alexandria, namely, that, if things didn’t “Work out”, that they would just take over.
Of course, they would discover how things work with The Saviors fairly quickly, perhaps even being shown the ropes of Negan’s “arrangement” with other groups firsthand. Even in the state Rick was in at the time, I doubt he would stand for how The Saviors operate.
With Rick having no tolerance for Negan’s tyranny, I expect he would begin attempting to find a way to usurp Negan and take The Sanctuary.
How? I’m not sure. My best guess is that Rick would attempt to either A) kill Negan and take over outright or B) Start trying to organize a resistance to Negan underneath his nose.
Who would be part of this resistance? It’s tough to say (Dwight, maybe?). However, I imagine Rick would come into any mutiny attempt with a much better understanding of the scale of The Saviors than he ended up with in Season Six.
But, What About Alexandria?
Without meeting Rick, there’s a very good chance that The Saviors would never realize that Alexandria was even there!
…Of course, there’s an equally good chance that that wouldn’t matter, because everyone in Alexandria would be dead.
Remember, even without The Wolves attacking (Which also wouldn’t happen because Aaron probably wouldn’t visit the warehouse), the quarry herd would still descend upon Alexandria. Once they did, while the walls would probably hold, unless they got lucky and something distracted the herd, sooner or later, either the town would starve to death or breakdown into total chaos as people fought over the remaining scraps of food. If she got lucky, Enid might have been able to slip away unscathed, but that’s it. If The Group ever found Alexandria, it would end up being a grisly ghost town.
The War For Virginia
I don’t know how a mutiny against The Saviors would turn out, to be honest. But, I think that, if Rick and company convince enough people to back them up, The Group could, at the very least, take out The Saviors at The Sanctuary.
So long as they had enough people and acted quickly enough, they could prevent any Saviors from escaping to warn Negan’s many outposts. The Group would then have a task on its hands, trying to shut down as many outposts as they could before the word got out.
In the end, I can’t predict exactly how this would end. I do believe that Rick would either kill Negan or remove him from power. If The Group couldn’t move quickly enough, either Cam, or Simon, or Paula might have risen up to regroup The Saviors and try to reclaim The Sanctuary.
Regardless, The Group would have a war on its hands with at least a portion of The Saviors. We could see Rick and company possibly forge alliances with communities previously under Negan’s thumb in order to take the fight to the Negan loyalists. Again, at this point, it’s difficult to tell.
But, in all of these scenarios you can see that, if just one thing changes, the whole world of The Walking Dead changes with it.
What do you guys think? Do you think I’m pretty close? Or, do you think that I’m talking total nonsense and pulling these scenarios completely out of thin air? Let me know what you think in the comments and share this around!
And if you want to prepare for an alternate scenario, in this case, if we had 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!