Fear the Walking Dead
The "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 1, episode 2 synopsis released online teases the fall of Los Angeles. Pictured: "Fear the Walking Dead" stars Cliff Curtis (left, as Travis Manawa) and Frank Dillane (right, as Nick Clark). AMC

AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” opened Season 1 strong by establishing a bevy of new characters and thrusting them head-first into the opening hours of the zombie apocalypse. With the 90 minute premiere behind us, and the character’s established firmly in viewer’s imagination, many are already wondering what happens next for the “Walking Dead” companion series.

According to TV Guide’s official synopsis for episode 2 of “Fear the Walking Dead,” titled “So Close, Yet So Far,” things will pick up in the same confusion as they were left in the pilot episode. With Nick (Frank Dillane), his mother Madison (Kim Dickens) and her boyfriend Travis (Cliff Curtis), coming to terms with the fact that – spoiler alert – zombies exist now, they’ll have to adapt to the situation in a hurry. Unfortunately, it seems as though walkers will be the least of their worries in the next episode.

“As Madison struggles to keep Nick from crippling withdrawal, Travis ventures out to find his son before Los Angeles falls,” the preview synopsis reads.

For those that need a refresher, episode one concluded with Nick, who had just escaped the hospital where he was detoxing from drug use, finding his former dealer and getting into a tussle over a gun. When he shoots the man that was trying to kill him, Frank, Travis and Madison find themselves face-to-face with a walker for the first time in the sober light of day (Nick’s first encounter doesn’t count). Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles is officially wise to the zombie outbreak now that a video has surfaced of police encountering a seemingly immortal “infected” person on the highway.

It seems the main focus of the next episode will be dealing with the logistics of these problems. Nick is a great character who was sort of on the vanguard of discovering zombies throughout the pilot episode, even keeping a surprisingly cool head at times despite his drug addiction. However, that doesn’t change the science of a drug addict suddenly going cold turkey. Keeping him healthy and alive is going to be a struggle at this point, zombies or no zombies.

Meanwhile, fans will likely find the concept of Travis doing anything “before Los Angeles falls” surprising given that they were expecting a slower burn on “Fear the Walking Dead." The show's producers have said it will take roughly two seasons before it catches up with the first episode of “The Walking Dead,” which premiered in 2010.

With the pilot episode showing the people of Los Angeles in the beginning stages of realizing that something is very wrong, it looks like episode 2 will dive deeper in the growing civil unrest in the city. In fact, a preview clip for “So Close, Yet So Far” shows the character’s world in more disarray than expected after just one episode. The below clip shows Madison reuniting with Tobias (Lincoln A. Castellanos) in an abandoned high school. Together they seem to be stealing as much canned food from the cafeteria as possible before stumbling upon Art (Scott Lawrence), who may or may not be, but almost definitely is, a zombie.

Fans can tune in to episode 2 of “Fear the Walking Dead” Sunday, Aug. 30, at 9 p.m. EDT on AMC.

RELATED STORIES