With “The Walking Dead” still bringing in big numbers, AMC has been trying to replicate its success with the prequel “Fear The Walking Dead,” which shows the collapse of civilization at the hands of the zombie outbreak. With new episodes returning this Sunday, here’s what you need to know about AMC’s take on the end of the world.
“FTWD” focuses on two former high school teachers, Madison Clark and Travis Manawa, whose relationship began after Travis’ divorce and the death of Madison’s husband.
Both have troubled relationships with their kids. While Madison’s daughter, Alicia, is smart and responsible, her son, Nick, has fallen into a heroin addiction. Meanwhile, Travis’ son, Chris, is bitter with his father for leaving the family.
It is through Madison’s drug-addled son that we see the zombie outbreak commence. The series opens with Nick waking up in a heroin den and discovering a walker feasting on the guts of another junkie who died of overdose. Madison doesn’t believe his story until she sees with her own eyes Nick’s dealer turn into a walker.
The first season follows Travis and Madison’s families try to escape Los Angeles as it undergoes full societal collapse. Travis reunites with Chris and his ex-wife Liza, who are forced to stick together as unsuspecting people protest police shootings of walkers.
Along the way, the Manawas and Clarks encounter a third family, the Salazars. They are led by Daniel, an immigrant from El Salvador with terrible memories of the atrocities he witnessed in his country. When the National Guard quarantine Madison’s neighborhood, Daniel warns the others that trouble is brewing.
Sure enough, the National Guard comes in and forcibly takes Nick to a hospital, with Liza going with them after the doctors press her into helping the medical team. At the hospital, Nick encounters a wealthy man named Victor Strand who plans to escape the chaos with the help of “Abigail.”
Back in the quarantine zone, Daniel beats one of the guardsmen into revealing the truth: the National Guard plans to kill everyone in the quarantine zone and evacuate the city. Los Angeles will then be carpet-bombed in the hopes of stifling the outbreak. The Salazars, Manawas and Clarks hatch a plan to break into the hospital to rescue Nick and Liza.
In the season one finale, the team fights their way through hordes of walkers to get Liza and Nick, the latter of whom convinces the group to take Strand with them. Strand leads them to “Abigail,” which turns out to be a yacht.
Before they board, however, Liza has a confession to make: one of the walkers bit her during the rescue attempt. As season one ends, Travis is forced to make his first kill by tearfully putting down his ex-wife.
In season two, Chris is now even more enraged at his father, as he blames Travis for failing to save Liza. Meanwhile, the rest of the group begins to distrust Strand, as he lashes out at everyone while claiming to pilot Abigail to San Diego.
Unfortunately, the group learns that the National Guard has not only bombed L.A., but every major west coast city as well. A search of Strand’s things finds that he actually plans to pilot the boat to Mexico, where he has supplies stored in Baja.
As they travel to Baja, the crew jumps from one chaotic encounter to another. These include a man who plans to poison both himself and his family before the walkers get them, a group of pirates who hijack Abigail and a border patrol unit that gets into a gunfight with the Angelenos.
Though Strand no longer has his ally, the Angelenos complete their voyage to Mexico, where they meet Celia, the leader of a cult in a gated Baja community. She believes that the walkers are simply the next stage in life, and killed her followers with poisoned wafers when they threatened to leave.
It’s here that Strand reunites with his dying boyfriend Thomas, who was the reason Strand wanted to sail to Mexico. Through season two, we see flashbacks of the two bonding, and now Strand convinces Thomas to let go of life by promising he’ll die with him. Instead, Strand lets Thomas die and then shoots him so he doesn’t reanimate.
While at Celia’s compound, the cracks in the group finally begin to tear them apart. Chris and Nick begin to behave more erratically, as Chris enters Alicia’s room with a knife and Nick begins covering himself in blood to disguise himself amongst the walkers. Chris runs off on his own, while Nick decides he wants to stay with Celia.
In the midseason finale, “Shiva,” the group finally breaks apart. Travis leaves the group to find Chris, and the two decide to travel together after they reconcile. After discovering that Celia keeps her family and house workers as walkers in the cellar, Madison lures Celia into the cellar and locks her in, leaving her to die. Finally, Daniel, having visions of his dead wife, commits suicide by burning down the compound.
While Strand and the women in the group flee the burning compound, Nick decides to go on his own, believing that Celia was right when she said the group destroys everything in their path. “Shiva” ends with the blood-covered Nick walking unharmed amongst the walkers, while Travis and Chris roam the Mexican countryside on their own.