Fear the Walking Dead: A Podcast

1.  Episode 1 x 01 Fear the Waking Dead (FTWD).  Quinn, Stephen, and Bruce discuss the premier of Fear the Walking Dead.  The episode focuses on the family dynamic of

Madison Clark and Travis Manawa, who are navigating the complicated

world of a blended family.

Quinn's favorite character in the episode is

Nick Clark, the drug addict who wakes up to find a zombie in the

abandoned church where he and his acquaintances get high.  We discuss

the way that monsters serve as metaphors for problems we face. In this

episode, zombies are metaphors for illicit drug use.  Of the three

zombies we see in the first episode, the first is the girl Nick has been

getting high with.  When he finds her, she's eating somebody's face. 

 Nick believes she might have taken some bad drugs (like the bath salts

stories that have been in the news), and he eventually tracks down his

dealer, Calvin.  The two fight over a gun, and Calvin dies from a gunshot wound then returns as a zombie.  He tries to bite

Madison and Travis, but Nick runs over Calvin with a truck.  Twice.  We

discuss whether the authorities would try to cover up a zombie

outbreak.  Who would be the first people to notice the zombie apocalypse?  How would people start hearing about it? 

We discuss the year when the zombie apocalypse happens.  The world of

FTWD seems to be current--the smart phones everybody uses seem to be

latest generation.

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Episode 0.  Quinn, Stephen, and Bruce are joined by

guest Savvy Woods at the Parish Press Coffee Shop in Ruston, LA, as we discuss the upcoming pilot episode of Fear

the Walking Dead.  Unfortunately, the beignet machine was broken, but we persevered. 

We discuss the main actors and characters, the setting in Los

Angeles at the very beginning of the epidemic, and speculate

about the year that this could be set.  Modern society is

incredibly complex and therefore easily disrupted and possibly

destroyed.

set in this universe, both the comic book and the television

show on AMC.  In this universe, the monsters aren't

called zombies; they are called walkers or biters.  The

pathogen that creates zombies in mysterious; at some point,

people realize everybody is already infected and will

reanimate if they die with their brains intact.

television.  The White Zombie from 1932

is more closely based on folktales of people who are

controlled by a sorcerer called a bokor.

Oddly

enough, the James Bond movie Live and Let Die in 1973

stuck fairly closely to the traditional folklore, possibly

because it was based on the 1954 book by the same name. 

Only this time, the voodoo elements were just a cover for what

the boss was up to. 

introduced the new kind of zombie, one produced by natural

rather than supernatural causes and not controlled by

anybody.  These zombies crave human flesh, sometimes

brains.

traditions and developed in Haiti.  Voodoo theology held

that the human has various aspects; the bokor could

capture one part of the soul and control the person's body

through it.

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the only

successful revolt by slaves, and many people fled the

violence. A large percentage ended up in New Orleans, which

doubled in size from the migration.  The immigrants came

with zombie stories along with the larger voodoo ideas and

spread throughout the south until they made their way to the

broader culture.

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