AMC announced today that they are taking a unique route to introduce a major addition to the Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 cast. According to EW, The channel will be premiering a half-hour special, set on a flight where walkers suddenly break out, during an episode of The Walking Dead, where commercial breaks would usually be. The standalone special will also debut online. One of the survivors of the mid-air attack, which is reminiscent of one of the few memorable sequences in the largely bland World War Z, will become a series regular on Fear the Walking Dead, when it returns for its 15-episode-long Season 2.
This is certainly an interesting way to give us the background on a character, a clear diversion from the usual in-episode flashbacks to the old way of life in The Walking Dead. The clearest difference between The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, in fact, is that the latter spin-off is entirely more linear in how it unfurls the story of who the characters were when the outbreak began. The point of the second series is to watch not only the transformation of many denizens from normal people to walkers, but to also watch the central cast become survivors, whether that means becoming tougher or philosophically more untrusting and violent. These are the changes that we're starting to see in Fear the Walking Dead, especially in its upcoming second episode, seeing as the premiere primarily just reintroduced the beginning of the plague and its symptoms. One can only suspect that the survivor of the in-air attack will become an important fixture of the Clark family and their extended friends and family when Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 debuts in 2016.
The Walking Dead Season 6 is set to premiere on October 16th with a feature-length premiere episode. There's no word, as of yet, of when the zombies-on-a-plane special will be airing.
