AMC’s upcoming Walking Dead spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead unfolds during the first days of the zombie apocalypse, which suggests a much more adrenaline-pounding, race-against-time vibe than the flagship show, which is more grim and meditative. Today, the first teaser trailer for the August premiere is in keeping with that notion, following one very scared guy (Frank Dillane) as he flees an unknown danger (presumably of the undead variety, but possibly something more mundane).
The terrified fellow is named Nick, who is actually one of the spinoff’s main characters. The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman elaborated on his characterization in the pilot:
“In the face of that, we’ve got Nick—who is played by Frank Dillane—who is pretty much a parent’s worst nightmare. He has flunked out of college, had a lot of trouble, got mixed up in some bad elements, and is definitely the problem child. And it’s exacerbated for him to be next to this perfect sister who seemingly doesn’t have anything going on in her life that is negative. But that’s not really the case, that’s just his perception. So you have these two siblings that are very much at odds with each other.”
Given that, Nick could be running from any number of vengeful parents or law enforcement officials, though the terror on his face is definitely of a life-or-death nature. Outside of Nick, Fear the Walking Dead centers on his high-achieving sister Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), their mother Madison (Kim Dickens), her fiancee Travis (Cliff Curtis), his ex-wife Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez), and another family including daughter Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) and father Daniel (Ruben Blades).
So, it’s a pretty tangled web of relations that the pilot will have to navigate, but something tells me that the complex family dynamics will get a little bit simpler when everyone is united by the simple goal of keeping their brains intact.
Fear the Walking Dead premieres in August on AMC.
