As you, I and the entire planet knows, “Fear The Walking Dead” is the new AMC companion piece to the blockbuster “The Walking Dead“. What is unique to the spinoff is the west coast locale and the timetable. While the original really gets cranking deep into the apocalypse thanks to Rick Grimes’ coma the series picks up right at the start of the world going to hell.

Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis) are high school academics who are engaged. Of course as with a lot of real life families, divorce brings with it a lot of issues. Cliff’s son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) hates him and Madison’s kids Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) are a junkie and a disillusioned teen.

Waking up in a Los Angeles abandoned church that doubles as a drug house, Nick finds himself in a precarious situation facing down the reanimated body of a girl he just scored with eating another druggie’s face. Fleeing the horrific scene, Nick is hit by a car. His story sounds more like a drug induced hallucination rather than reality. His soon to be step father goes to check out the church he discovers a gruesome sight of blood but no bodies.

As the episode continues, the feeling of dread mounts and while the pilot might not feature a plethora of walkers it builds to a very promising future. Dickens and Cutis have an easy chemistry as a barely making it couple and the secondary characters are very capable. The breakout star for me was Dillane’s portrayal of Nick. He nails the drug addict paranoia while given a very human performance.

“Fear The Walking Dead” is off to a great start and while there was a bit of a slow burn in the premiere episode I anticipate an intriguing series highlighting what average people do at the beginning of the end.

 

 

4 of 5 Walkers