We are a few weeks removed now from the Fear the Walking Dead midseason finale, and some viewers may still be wrestling with that baffling cliffhanger. Showrunner Dave Erickson admits that he, too, sympathizes with the frustrations of viewers, and suggests that, as the characters become more familiar with the zombie apocalypse, they will make fewer dumb decisions.
Probably the most baffling development in the midseason finale was the character assassination of Nick, the character played by Frank Dillane (who was recently arrested for a baffling assault). After successfully transforming Nick from a junkie teenager spending much of the first season looking for a fix into one of the smarter, more capable characters, his character arc took a hard right turn into Crazytown. In just two episodes, Nick fell under the influence of Celia and got it in his head that the zombies were these mystical beings who represented the next stage of life. At the end of the midseason finale, Nick decided to abandon his family and basically go live with the walkers and become some sort of zombie cult leader.
Recently, showrunner Dave Erickson offered that the midseason premiere will explain why he made that decision.
“We connect something in the premiere of the back half. We find out he had something in his hand that we didn’t know about that makes him a little bit less insane than to just walk off. He also reconnects with someone when we come back in episode 8.”
He had something in his hand that would explain why he decided to go live with the zombies? Based on the trailer for the midseason premiere, we can probably assume that what Nick had in his hands were drugs.
The question, I guess, is this: Did Nick make the decision to go live with the zombies because he was under the influence of drugs, or did he lie and tell Madison he was going to go live with the zombies in order to get away from his family so that he could start using again? Either explanation, honestly, is unsatisfying, because after watching Nick transform into a deft survivor, it will be disappointing to see the character relapse and be reduced to this again:
There’s little more frustrating for viewers than relapsing characters. It resets the character, and we may have to suffer through another half season of watching Nick go through withdrawal symptoms, search for more drugs, and finally hit rock bottom again.
Fear the Walking Dead returns to AMC on August 21st.
(Via IBTimes)
