Fear the Walking Dead Season 1 discussion and spoilers.

[Locutus of Bored]

I can't remember. Was there a moment in the series when we learned that the ZA was happening outside of LA as well?

Tobias (the smart kid with acne who brought a knife to school) in the first episode said that he had read about a viral outbreak in five states causing people to kill each other.

 

[Ryan8bit]

The gate was left open so the rest of the safezone population could leave if they choice to do so. But if they had shut the gate and Walkers had shown up later and broke in. Those people would had been trap which no way to get out.

Even though they didn't show it. I believe that Travis informed them of what going on and what they're planing to do. They might had ask them to help out in the rescue mission, which they refused to take part of. Leaving Travis group to do it on their own. Which almost end up being a disaster for them, but turned out to be a success, even though Liza gotten bitten.

With no more soldiers around to shoot them, why would anyone have any more trouble opening the gate than the main characters had?

Hell, if push comes to shove, they can always just run it over with a big truck. It wasn't that sturdy, anyway.

No, the only reason to leave the gate open is because they either wanted the others to be exposed or they just didn't care that the others would be exposed.

This group has an alarming rate of leaving doors open when they shouldn't, except for when the story needs a door to lock behind them.

Also, you could tell from the looks on their faces as they were leaving the neighborhood that they were looking down upon these neighbors. They were made out to look naive while our characters were now in the know. Much in the same way the military was portrayed to look.

I doubt the remaining safe zone people were really that helpless though. They could figure out how to press a few buttons or cut a hole in the fence like Madison did.

 

[davejames]

All 4 of these people KNEW what they were doing, I think they planned on killing the military for what they were doing and killed their neighbors for not standing up to the military when they took their family.
The funny thing is, they didn't stand up to the military when they took the neighbor Doug so why should any of the neighbors help them?
These people are murdering, self serving, idiotic pricks.

I think that might be a slightly harsh interpretation. Yeah Salazar clearly had it in for the military and didn't give a shit, but I didn't get the impression the others thought the compound would be completely overrun and decimated the way it was. This wasn't a small unit heading into a building after all (like Travis saw earlier), but a heavily armed military compound with a fence and towers and helicopters-- which any reasonable person would think would be enough.

And which the others likely just expected to provide enough of a distraction that they could get their people out.

Obviously I don't deny that the characters weren't written in the nicest or most likable way this season, but I didn't get the impression at the end they were all a bunch of callous murderers either (and from all the reviews and recaps I read afterwards, no one else really seemed to think that either).

 

[DarthTom]

So after watching Talking Dead, my impression is that they may get out to the yacht, but find it alreayd occupied by other folks. But it's still sitting there because Strand has the key, and whoever is on it has no clue how to hotwire a yacht.

I assumed that a yacht that size would require a crew not simply, "the key." Strand likely has a smaller boat to reach the larger one however which would require a key.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I kind of wonder if these people will turn out to be villains? And I mean, more so than the type of person that Rick is... something in line with the Governor. That would at least be an interesting twist, although I don't think it's going to happen. This show is apparently a family drama first with the zombies second and societal collapse a very distant third.

The FTWD PTB as so off in no-morality-land, that they have turned the characters into villains with no justification for their behavior. As mentioned earlier, they are as self-serving as the Governor with torture, and leading zombies to attack the innocent.

What are their redeeming qualities?

We aren't privy to much of that. Kirkman has this idea that characters should be shielded from that kind of information. He wasn't fond of the CDC episode giving them such information, despite that it's logical for the characters to want to know. These characters are purposefully written in a non-inquisitive way to try and avoid the implausibility of a zombie apocalypse overturning society.

Translated, it means Kirkman is poor writer dodging the natural human trait explored in "TS-19" by Darabont, who was the true writer. Any real person would pursue how did the zombie virus start and what measures (if any) can be put into action to stop it (even if no hard explanation is discovered), but to purposely avoid that just turns the story into some need to be "legitimate" by focusing on dysfunctional families that happened to have zombies in the background.

 

[Ryan8bit]

Translated, it means Kirkman is poor writer dodging the natural human trait explored in "TS-19" by Darabont, who was the true writer.

Well, that's not exactly what I meant. I think Kirkman has certain writing strengths, but one of his weaknesses is that he wants to ignore things that make the story not work instead of trying to find a clever workaround (at least on TV). There aren't very many writers with that latter trait in Hollywood, and I don't entirely blame them. Most audiences gravitate more towards drama rather than reason.

That said, I think it's very difficult to explain how the world could fall without just saying a wizard did it. So many things are very difficult to add up. I can see not wanting to address certain things because of that, which is why most zombie fiction starts well after the initial outbreak panic. That's one reason why this show has a lot of scrutiny. They set the show in this time period while still wanting to avoid a lot of what comes with that.

 

[hux]

The more you dodge the issue of the virus and the outbreak, the more you build up its importance (and also the disappointment when you finally address the issue). Let's face it, it's can only be a number of possibilities. Came from outer space, military created it, mad cult created it etc. It doesn't actually matter that much but if they continue to side-step it then it obviously becomes something that fans will speculate on.

I'm still not clear how the virus works. We're all infected with a dormant version and only when we die does it become active?

Unless you're bitten by a zombie, in which case you get the active version from the zombie (even if it's a non-lethal bite) or the bite transforms the dormant version within you into the active version? But if that's true then doesn't that make the dormant version entirely redundant to the story?

Remember when Bob shouted "tainted meat." Well was it tainted or was it still just the dormant version of the virus they were eating?

 

[sojourner]

Maybe the dormant virus needs the host to suffer some kind of trauma (a bite) to become active? Hmmm, but then every little cut would kill someone. Transfer of active virus from the zombie has to occur through the bite? So something in the mouth of the zombie is a key component to activating dormant virus?

 

[davejames]

That said, I think it's very difficult to explain how the world could fall without just saying a wizard did it. So many things are very difficult to add up. I can see not wanting to address certain things because of that, which is why most zombie fiction starts well after the initial outbreak panic. That's one reason why this show has a lot of scrutiny. They set the show in this time period while still wanting to avoid a lot of what comes with that.

Well I would have expected the news they were focusing on just this one family (and not on, say, a bunch of military or CDC characters) would have prevented a lot of that. Once that was made known to us, I never really expected we'd get a ton of insight into the cause of the virus.

Not that, again, it's something I've ever been much interested in seeing anyway. Once you start down that road, the show becomes another silly Revolution, where too much of the focus in on unraveling some mystery or looking for clues or searching for a cure, instead of on the emotional journey of the characters.

 

[Ryan8bit]

I'm still not clear how the virus works. We're all infected with a dormant version and only when we die does it become active?

It's all pretty much magic anyways, but the idea is that whatever the zombies have in their mouth/nails causes a separate lethal infection that cannot be cured. This infection is probably caused by the active zombie agent, whatever that may be.

That said, I think it's very difficult to explain how the world could fall without just saying a wizard did it. So many things are very difficult to add up. I can see not wanting to address certain things because of that, which is why most zombie fiction starts well after the initial outbreak panic. That's one reason why this show has a lot of scrutiny. They set the show in this time period while still wanting to avoid a lot of what comes with that.

Well I would have expected the news they were focusing on just this one family (and not on, say, a bunch of military or CDC characters) would have prevented a lot of that. Once that was made known to us, I never really expected we'd get a ton of insight into the cause of the virus.

Not that, again, it's something I've ever been much interested in seeing anyway. Once you start down that road, the show becomes another silly Revolution, where too much of the focus in on unraveling some mystery or looking for clues or searching for a cure, instead of on the emotional journey of the characters.

I wasn't even talking about the cure or the cause there, but that the characters don't seem to want to know anything about the world around them. They're not inquisitive or like real people. We don't see them asking basic, reasonable questions that normal people would have when faced with an epidemic.

 

[sojourner]

I wasn't even talking about the cure or the cause there, but that the characters don't seem to want to know anything about the world around them. They're not inquisitive or like real people. We don't see them asking basic, reasonable questions that normal people would have when faced with an epidemic.

Yeah, I brought this up after the second episode. Normal people would have at least been combing the news channels on TV for reports of what's going on. From a "normal person" standpoint they should have looked to how people behaved during the day of/aftermath of 9/11. The TV should have been on in that house until they couldn't find anymore channels broadcasting.

 

[davejames]

Yeah I totally agree we should have seen a lot more of that, but we did see some curiosity from them early on about how the virus worked and who was really infected and if it was something that might be curable, etc.

I think what we're meant to believe is that people back then just thought it was some strange little virus or crazy drug going around, which the government would find a quick solution to, and then the whole thing would quickly be over with. And that no one really expected they were looking at the end of civilization or something that required gluing yourself to the TV to learn more about. And that by the time they did realize the situation was serious, the government and media were gone and there was no more information to be gotten.

Unfortunately the way it was executed just makes it a bit hard to buy that explanation.

 

[sojourner]

That's where the skipped 9 days really comes into play.

 

[theenglish]

I kind of wonder if these people will turn out to be villains? And I mean, more so than the type of person that Rick is... something in line with the Governor. That would at least be an interesting twist, although I don't think it's going to happen. This show is apparently a family drama first with the zombies second and societal collapse a very distant third.

I can't remember. Was there a moment in the series when we learned that the ZA was happening outside of LA as well?

We aren't privy to much of that. Kirkman has this idea that characters should be shielded from that kind of information. He wasn't fond of the CDC episode giving them such information, despite that it's logical for the characters to want to know. These characters are purposefully written in a non-inquisitive way to try and avoid the implausibility of a zombie apocalypse overturning society. In reality, most every adult would understand at least the disease is not local to just their city.

I think so too. This group has committed an act of true, premeditated evil. So far, Rick and his group have committed evil acts in the interest of self-preservation or, in some cases, simply because they were on the verge of losing their sanity.

I wonder though, if this infection started in LA and because of the act we see in this final episode spreads across the continent. Perhaps the military was actually on the road to truly containing the contagion. Even more so than just being a group of bad humans, this family is responsible for unleashing the Apocalypse upon the world.

 

[sojourner]

Wow, now we've progressed to blaming them for the end of the world.

 

[shapeshifter]

Episode six was better, like episode 3, but my overall opinion of season 1 is it was almost total crap, imo.

I simply cannot understand how, after taking so long to develop and bring to the screen, this was as good as they could come up with. It's like they literately threw shit at the wall hoping something stuck, imo.

All that said, I am glad we have a new WD series and I do hope it will eventually develop into something at least as good as WD.

 

[hux]

I wonder though, if this infection started in LA and because of the act we see in this final episode spreads across the continent. Perhaps the military was actually on the road to truly containing the contagion. Even more so than just being a group of bad humans, this family is responsible for unleashing the Apocalypse upon the world.

That would be a clever and interesting twist on things... so for that reason, I'm gonna say it probably isn't the case.

I've also heard talk of flashbacks to the missing nine days that suggest these people are somehow more involved in the worldwide outbreak than we realise but again, I think that's probably just another example of fans coming up with stories/theories that are more interesting than what the writers will eventually give us.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Translated, it means Kirkman is poor writer dodging the natural human trait explored in "TS-19" by Darabont, who was the true writer.

Well, that's not exactly what I meant. I think Kirkman has certain writing strengths, but one of his weaknesses is that he wants to ignore things that make the story not work instead of trying to find a clever workaround (at least on TV).

Then, that is a case of being a poor writer who dodges. Even a serio-comedy like Return of the Living Dead provided a specific reason for the reanimated dead. To avoid it--not only as a writer, but with the characters--kills any believable reasons for their actions moving forward.

No rational mind (whether is it among characters...or WD franchise fans) would think to say nothing of "what / when / how" if the most unexpected, disastrous event in history suddenly hit humankind. That's why Darabont added exactly what was needed in TWD season one: characters seeking answers. Without that, TWD would have been a group just sitting around, trying to avoid the occasional zombie, instead of appearing intelligent, and wanting to know if the ZA can be stalled or stopped altogether.

That said, I think it's very difficult to explain how the world could fall without just saying a wizard did it. So many things are very difficult to add up. I can see not wanting to address certain things because of that, which is why most zombie fiction starts well after the initial outbreak panic. That's one reason why this show has a lot of scrutiny. They set the show in this time period while still wanting to avoid a lot of what comes with that.

Well, look back to the original Night of the Living Dead, the prologue / credits sequence to the 2004 Dawn remake, and the aforementioned Return--each provided either an explanation, or moments dedicated to official response and/or theory. That--and/or news coverage frames the fictional world in realistic terms the audience understands and expects, when any major disease or catastrophe occurs.

Darabont knew the quest for official answers was expected, and as a result, TWD's first season ended with the relief that a "how / what / when" had been addressed by story and character, and did not need to be addressed again until Milton, and the promise of Eugene's story.

FTWD--at a time when everyone should be seeking answers like TWD season 1--fails through cowardly writers / avoidance.

The more you dodge the issue of the virus and the outbreak, the more you build up its importance (and also the disappointment when you finally address the issue). Let's face it, it's can only be a number of possibilities. Came from outer space, military created it, mad cult created it etc. It doesn't actually matter that much but if they continue to side-step it then it obviously becomes something that fans will speculate on.

Agreed.

Unless you're bitten by a zombie, in which case you get the active version from the zombie (even if it's a non-lethal bite) or the bite transforms the dormant version within you into the active version? But if that's true then doesn't that make the dormant version entirely redundant to the story?

Remember when Bob shouted "tainted meat." Well was it tainted or was it still just the dormant version of the virus they were eating?

I think he meant your 1st point: Bob had the active version of the bite (which was in the process of killing him).

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I think so too. This group has committed an act of true, premeditated evil.

Yes, they have, and it says much if any audience members try to defend their actions.

 

[theenglish]

I think so too. This group has committed an act of true, premeditated evil.

Yes, they have, and it says much if any audience members try to defend their actions.

I think that it would be very interesting to have a show where the protagonists become the "bad" humans that we have seen in the original series in a way that actually makes us sympathetic to their position. Sort of the Breaking Bad of the Walking Dead (although I would argue Walter White was always a psychopath based on various clues to his past we are given throughout the series).

I would love to see flashbacks in future episodes that showed us what drove this particular family to the decision in the season finale. I re-watched and there is this scene when they are driving out of town. We see the mother (can't be bothered to learn her name) looking at her neighbors through the window and, in retrospect, it is obvious that she knows she is condemning them to die horribly.

If the show does show the development of a "governor" like character in the future then it might actually become interesting to watch rather than the filler it has been for the past six weeks.