Twitter Had Very Mixed Feelings About Sunday’s Spanish-Language ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Episode

Our nation is currently divided on their feelings about Mexican immigration into the United States, so it is not much of a surprise that viewers of Fear the Walking Dead would likewise be divided over an episode that aired almost entirely in Spanish with English subtitles. From a storytelling standpoint, it made perfect sense, as showrunner Davie Erickson explained to Entertainment Weekly:

I hope that people don’t get frustrated by the subtitles, but creatively, it just made sense. That was not something that I was concerned with and it’s not something that the network ever expressed any worry over either, so it’s just what it is. I mean, if you’re telling a story that’s set in Mexico and the characters are all Spanish-speaking characters, there’s no reason to play it in English. If we had thrown in a character who was English-speaking just to make sure we had some balance between the languages, that would have felt a little bit cheesy, a little bit forced.

A lot of twitter users gave the series props for daring to air the episode mostly in Spanish.

https://twitter.com/SGrayban/status/876619373422694400

https://twitter.com/dmt1196/status/876616976877182977

However, there were just as many on Twitter who expressed their frustration with all the subtitles in the episode, even if it made total sense creatively.

https://twitter.com/alycified/status/876621539587661824

https://twitter.com/thekat0711/status/876612951628754944

https://twitter.com/Billytech/status/876611838078849024

Agree or disagree with the decision, the use of subtitles is not likely to go away anytime soon. The series features a number of Spanish-speaking characters, its set both in Mexico and on the Mexican-American border, and the series has attracted a huge following in Mexico and Latin America. At the very least, it is something one thing that definitely separates Fear the Walking Dead from its parent series, The Walking Dead.