Don’t fear the spinoff! The premiere of AMC’s prequel to The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, proved without a doubt that it is as thrilling and scary as hoped.
Existing in the same universe as The Walking Dead and written by Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson, the spinoff explores the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.
Set in Los Angeles, the premiere introduced the blended family of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis), druggie Nick (Frank Dilane), and overachieving high school senior Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), at the outbreak of the zombie virus.
From the show’s enthralling opening scene to its bloody finale, Fear the Walking Dead served up plenty of gross and utterly terrifying moments in its supersized episode. Here are the five scariest moments:
That Intense Opening Scene
The three minutes of footage AMC released ahead of time totally set the tone for the rest of the episode. Nick, who was passed out in an abandoned-church-turned-druggie-hotel, woke up in a haze. Clearly groggy and out of sorts, he scoured the building looking for his friend, Gloria — but once he stumbled upon her, it was too late. She was clearly infected and was bloodily feasting on a body. Nick frantically fled from the scene, only to dash into the path of an oncoming car, which careened into him. Welcome to the rise of the zombie apocalypse, Nick.
In Search of Answers
The twentysomething addict woke up in the hospital, knowing that despite the fact that he was high, what he saw was real — and also implausible. He tried to describe to his stepfather, Travis, what he saw. Though it sounded insane, Travis went to the church to investigate whether Nick’s tall tale was true. Guess what? It was — he saw the blood, the remains, and so much more.
Nick’s Great Escape
After being held up in the hospital for too long and wanting answers, Nick escaped. Travis and Nick’s mom, Madison, went to the church in hopes of finding Nick. The building was empty, but Madison stumbled upon her son’s belongings — including his drug paraphernalia — in a heartbreaking, chilling moment of realization that her little boy was in trouble. On the drive home, Madison was left reeling from her discovery of the truth of Nick’s life and fearing the worst.
The Zombie Attacks Have Begun
Travis and Madison got stuck in traffic on their way home from the abandoned church. Traffic and L.A. go hand in hand, except this backup seemed odd. The next day, gruesome police footage revealed that a presumed dead victim at the center of the traffic jam was a freshly undead human who started to attack the emergency team around him. The footage of the attack went viral, as most assumed it was a prank or another reboot of Punk’d, but panic still ensued.
Find Nick, Find The Zombies
Nick wanted answers, so he met up with Calvin, his dealer. Still reeling from his discovery of Gloria feasting on a body in the church, Nick wondered if the drugs Calvin had sold him were laced. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and the zombies — sorry, “infected” — were very much real and not a hallucination. Calvin drove Nick to a remote spot and pulled out a gun, which Nick wrestled away from his friend-turned-dealer and ended up shooting and killing him. Travis and Madison found Nick and he took them to Calvin’s body, but it had disappeared… or had it?
After Nick left, it seems Calvin had been turned, and he came lurching back toward Travis, Madison, and Nick in the main characters’ first face-to-face moment with the undead — and it was bloodcurdlingly scary. Nick, Madison and Travis ran him down with their truck and finally escaped the newly zombified Calvin’s wrath, an ending that perfectly sets up what’s to come this season.
Tell Us: What was the scariest moment of the Fear the Walking Dead premiere?
Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.
