The Best ‘What Ifs’ Of Fear The Walking Dead

What If Chris DIDN’T Die?

First thing’s first, a disclaimer: This scenario isn’t some sort of magical version of events where Chris survived and recovered. No, nothing crazy like that.

You see, a little while back, my brother and I were discussing how Season Three of Fear was going, and he posited this to me: What if Chris WASN’T dead?

His theory (Which I would have done an article on, if there were evidence to back it up) was not that Chris survived the horrific injuries which killed him, but, that those injuries never happened in the first place.

What?!

Yes. My brother’s theory was that the grievous injuries, which we were led to believe would have killed Chris, never happened.

This might seem out there, but, the crux of my brother’s argument is this: What we saw of Chris’s death wasn’t us actually seeing it, but, us seeing how Travis imagines it.

Think about it: Chris’s “death” was a uniquely colored scene, visibly grayer than an ordinary one.

That color difference is crucial: Flashbacks in either Walking Dead series don’t have that, neither do hallucinations. It isn’t an event we’re witnessing, just another character’s (In this case, Travis) vision of how something went down.

In this scenario, what we see is not a recounting of an actual event, but a lie Brandon and Derek are telling Travis.

But, why lie, you might ask? Because Chris told them to.

My brother’s theory is that, after the truck crashed, Brandon, Derek, and Chris had to continue on foot. Brandon and Derek, mildly injured from the accident, had to go to the nearest shelter in the hope of getting medical attention.

Chris, fearing he might run into his father again and still believing they’re both better off apart, opts to continue heading home. When asked what to do should Chris be correct, he tells his friends to inform his father that he was injured in the crash, and that they helped him by putting him down to prevent reanimation.

So, that’s the premise, but…what are the results? How does this change things?

Well, in the short term, it doesn’t. To the best of Travis’s knowledge, he righteously kills the men who killed his son because they were too hasty in trying to leave Mexico.

Chris, meanwhile, continues to head towards the U.S.-Mexico border, though he likely doesn’t have much idea how to get home beyond going north.

In the long term, this creates what could be a very large change.

All other things being equal, Travis is still shot by snipers from Black Hat Reservation as he, Alicia, Charlene, and Jake make their way back to Broke Jaw Ranch. That doesn’t change.

But, what do you think would happen if Chris discovered that his father had died? How do you think he would react?

First of all, the question of how he finds out is entirely up to you. Maybe Chris was wandering through the wilderness and discovered his father’s body. Maybe he made his way to Broke Jaw Ranch and was told about what happened. Again, how he finds out is entirely up to you. The important thing is how Chris reacts to that news.

My guess? Not well.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Chris was not terribly stable when he and Travis parted ways. Sure, he wasn’t trying to kill people in their sleep anymore, but, he was far from being in a good place.

He was openly rejecting Travis’s attempt to keep him a good person, opting instead to walk the more selfish path laid out by Brandon and Derek.

When you combine that with a stretch of isolation, it likely would only serve to exacerbate Chris’s downward spiral.

For Chris to learn his father, the last piece of his family, was dead? He would, likely, go over the edge.

But…what would that look like?

First of all, my brother suspected that rather than blame Black Hat (Though, there’s still room for him to save that for later), Chris would blame his father’s death…on Madison.

It stands to reason: In Chris’s mind, Madison’s “betrayal” forced him (And, subsequently, his father) to leave the hacienda.

The way he would see it, everything bad that happened to them stemmed from Madison’s betrayal. If she hadn’t done that, they would have stayed together as a family.

Speaking of which, as Chris began to fester over his father’s death, it’s possible his mind may swirl to his mother’s death, too.

In his mind, he may believe that his father killed his mother, not because she asked him too, but, to please Madison. In order to build his new family, he had to ensure that reminder of his old one (i.e. Liza), was gone.

Crazy? Maybe. But, remember, Chris believed that Madison “betrayed” him by airing her concern that Chris lied about Reed turning. There’s also his whole “Shaniac” incident with Alicia in Mexico, so…I don’t think it’s crazy as you might first assume.

With this belief that Madison “destroyed” his family, I could picture Chris, effectively, becoming a stalker. Picture him constantly watching Madison (And maybe Alicia), trying to get down her patterns before attempting to kill her; If Black Hat found him, this would be all the more likely, as they would teach him their methods of stealth.

We would watch more and more of a mysterious stalker as Season Three unfolded until, finally, Chris revealed himself. I imagine either at the midseason finale or the season finale, Chris would finally attempt to exact his revenge, trying to kill Madison before dying, likely by Alicia’s hand. After being there when Travis died, Alicia would end up being the one to have to kill Chris.

All in all, this is probably my favorite “What if” for Fear The Walking Dead. With the ambiguity around Chris’s death (The whole “Travis’s imagining” thing), it gives just enough wiggle room for this series of events to occur, in a hypothetical situation where Chris didn’t die, of course.

Getting a chance to see Chris truly morph into a full-fledged villain in Fear (And, really, the first true recurring villain the show would see) sounds like a lot  of fun. Kind of like watching Shane’s eventual descent into madness in The Walking Dead. Hmm…

And, all of that, if one person was telling a lie.

Next: The Best 'What Ifs' Of The Walking Dead, Part Three

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!