Though these new images from AMC's companion series Fear the Walking Dead are glaringly devoid of Walkers, they do offer up new looks at cast members Kim Dickens, Cliff Curtis, Alycia Debnam-Carey, and Maestro Harrell. How many of their characters will survive to see season two? No idea. But we do have some insight into the series from The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman.
As we reported in our "Things to Know" piece, Fear the Walking Dead will follow the members of a dysfunctional family for the four to five weeks that Rick Grimes was lying in a coma. In addition to this new batch of images, EW also chatted up Kirkman to gain a bit more info on the principal cast. One image gives us another glimpse of Madison (Dickens), who Kirkman describes as follows:
“Madison is a character whose husband died. And she’s been raising her kids on her own, so she’s a character that has experienced a very abrupt change to her life that she has had to adapt to. So there’s an inherent strength in this single mother that makes her in some ways uniquely adapted to live in the zombie apocalypse. And I think Kim has shown that if you want to have a strong female character, a no-nonsense strong character —but with a lot of warmth, because its hard sometimes to find an actress that can have those two things and can be this leader and also have this warmth and this kindness to her—that’s something that Kim is very capable of.”
By Madison's side is her boyfriend, Travis (Curtis). Though the relationships of the central characters of The Walking Dead were thrown into chaos thanks to the undead apocalypse, it sounds as if the companion series characters will have a stronger foundation, at least to start:
“Travis is a character that represents a sense of stability in Madison’s life, and so he’s really 100 percent on board. With the craziness of her life, he’s her rock. ... He’s definitely got a darkness to his past. ... He is finding himself torn between Liza, his ex-wife, and Madison.”
Not shown in these images, but talked about at length by Kirkman, is Madison's troublesome son, Nick (Frank Dillane).
“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.”
Last but not least, we get a look at Nick's sister Alicia (Debnam-Carey) and her boyfriend Matt (Harrell). My money's on this duo being set up to tug on the audience's heartstrings, only to be emotionally (and perhaps physically) torn apart by the events at the end of the world. We'll find out for sure when Fear the Walking Dead premieres later this summer on AMC.
