Fear The Walking Dead: The beginning of the end

2) They Knew

Now, by “They” I mean the doctors and nurses at Temple Community Hospital where Nick was taken to after being struck by a car trying to get away from Gloria.

To be perfectly honest, I never noticed this the first time, and even the second time watching the pilot episode of Fear. It wasn’t until watching it for this article that I noticed it, but, for me, this changes a whole hell of a lot.

During Nick’s second day at the hospital, when the nurse gives him a bedpan, as he tries to use the opportunity to sneak out of the hospital, he accidentally knocks the bedpan to the floor, which seems to startle his roommate, causing him to flatline.

As the hospital staff try to resuscitate him, Dr. Gould says to the nurse “If we don’t have a rhythm on him in sixty, I want him downstairs. Too much we don’t know”. The sketch factor gets dialed up further when you realize that, as Dr. Gould is giving these instructions, the nurse notices Nick watching intently and listening, which causes both her and Dr. Gould to stare at Nick for a second or two before dealing with the old man.

This suggests that the staff at Temple Community Hospital, if not every medical professional in the city of Los Angeles, at least on some level knew that when people died, they turned, and, not surprisingly (Considering the panic that would cause), didn’t want people knowing about it.

This is crazy. How long had they known? A couple of days? Even longer? Remember, Tobias was telling Madison about hearing reports (Presumably of infecteds) in five states; This was the day Nick was hospitalized, so, this means things were happening in some places for a least a day or two before Gloria turned. It gets scarier still when you remember that, when Madison goes to the hospital looking for Nick (Who passed a security monitor showing a pair of nurses apparently escorting someone who died), the nurse mentions that, around that time, another person died on that floor.

This has me wondering two questions: 1) How many infected did they have in the hospital’s basement? Dozens? Hundreds? And 2) If they knew before Nick was hospitalized (Which is possible, considering how they reacted to Nick’s roommate)…did any city officials know?

Oh, and before I forget, just to add the cherry on top: When Nick is leaving the hospital, you see and ambulance with its back door open, suggesting they were in the process of bringing in an emergency patient (They then ride off with their sirens blaring, obviously heading off to another call). I don’t need to spell out how ominous that would be, considering the circumstances, do I?