Fear the Walking Dead season 7 preview: Dawn of the super-apocalypse

The super-apocalypse is here, and with the hefty combination of nuclear fallout and the ever-present walkers and people who will stop at nothing to survive, Fear the Walking Dead has never been so intense! Here are my thoughts about the first two episodes made available to reviewers.

I have a theory about Fear the Walking Dead. I think the show is going to run through season 9, forming three trilogies. If I’m right, then Fear the Walking Dead season 7 will usher in a new era for the show while marking the beginning of the final act.

After previewing the first two episodes, season 7 certainly feels like it’s closing the door on the past and embracing a very uncertain future as survivors have to contend with nuclear fallout on top of everything else. At the same time, the ties to the past are as present as ever, because you can’t undo years and years of shared history no matter how hard you try.

I’ve always been a fan of Fear TWD and I have a lot of respect for both the first three seasons and the past three. I like that it’s different from The Walking Dead and that the show has evolved over the years. I view the first three seasons as distinctly separate from seasons 4 through 6. Though some characters have bridged all six seasons and have survived to season 7, the narrative changed when showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg took the reins in season 4.

Season 4 was important for the future of the series in a number of ways. Not only did it mark a divide from the show’s beginnings under original showrunner Dave Erickson, but it was the first time a character crossed over from the flagship series The Walking Dead to the spinoff. This is important because from the very start AMC and TWD overboss Scott M. Gimple were steadfast that crossovers would never happen.

So when The Walking Dead OG Lennie James, who appeared in the pilot and several subsequent seasons, showed up in Texas in season 4, it marked a new era for the series. With the benefit of hindsight, there’s no question that seasons 4 and 5 were setting up the incredibly dark story in season 6, which paved the way for the super-apocalypse of season 7.

In other words, we couldn’t be here in season 7 now without what happened before. Everything has led to this point.

Season 7 marks a departure from the previous six seasons and welcomes a new era for the show and its characters. You can’t undo the effects of a nuclear blast, so unless they leave the area, the nuclear age is here to stay, and it’s a game changer.

Fear the Walking Dead season 7 preview: “The Beacon”, “Six Hours”

Since we can’t divulge details that would spoil the season premiere, I’m going to stick to vagaries. “The Beacon” is just about the darkest episode of anything we’ve seen in The Walking Dead universe. The show takes a beloved character on a horrifying new arc that’s absolutely brilliant, and so much fun to watch.

Colman Domingo is at his finest in this episode. He has directed several episodes of the series and now he’s a producer, and the writers have given him a new way to sink his teeth into Victor Strand that was never possible before. It’s brilliant, in every sense of the word, and Domingo leans into this new direction with gusto. The evolution of Victor Strand from season 1 con man to where he is now has been fascinating, and this might be the most authentic version of Strand we’ve seen.

The second episode of the season is also very dark. “Six Hours” follows Morgan and Grace’s journey to find food after supplies at the submarine run out. Baby Mo is hungry and won’t stop crying, and the pressure of trying to care for her on the heels of her own tremendous loss is almost too much for Grace to bear.

This episode is a reminder that even in the middle of the super-apocalypse you can’t turn off biology. Grace’s depression after losing the baby is impacting her, and the show is doing an incredible job depicting her battle. Karen David continues to deliver top-rate performances that deserve all the recognition in the world.

“Six Hours” also delivers some chilling surprises that are only made possible by the grotesque landscape of the nuclear apocalypse. The threats are magnified and intensified, and Morgan and Grace face threats unlike anything we’ve seen before.

The anthology format of Fear the Walking Dead, continues in season 7, and I think it makes for much stronger episodes. In the first seven episodes of The Walking Dead season 11, the episodes are divided between three to four different stories each week, and it waters down the narrative. By sticking to one story each week that has ties to the larger story arc, Fear TWD seems to have found the perfect narrative structure to deliver quality cinematic episodes regularly.

If the first two episodes are any indication, Fear the Walking Dead season 7 will go down as one of the darkest of the entire series, setting up some big stories for the future while driving The Walking Dead Universe into new territory at breakneck speed.

Fear the Walking Dead season 7 premieres Sunday, October 17 at 9pm ET/PT on AMC, and new episodes are available a week early for AMC+ subscribers.

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