If you want to learn about The Walking Dead’s first spin-off but don’t know where to start, have no Fear — we’re here to help.
Horror drama Fear the Walking Dead, which ran from 2015-2023, was created by The Walking Dead comics author Robert Kirkman and original showrunner Dave Erickson. Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg took over as showrunners starting with Season 4.
Like The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead follows a large cast of characters as they try to survive the zombie apocalypse. It stays within that basic premise while telling one continuous story over its run, but its cast, setting, tone, and visual aesthetic change so much throughout the seasons that it sort of feels like two, maybe even three different shows. With all eight seasons now streaming on Netflix in the US, here’s what you need to know before you watch.
In its first three seasons, Fear the Walking Dead focuses on the Clarks, a dysfunctional family from Los Angeles, as they navigate the early days of the zombie virus outbreak. The show’s version of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) — an ordinary person who rises to meet extraordinary circumstances in order to protect their family at all costs — is Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), a high school guidance counselor who becomes the leader of her community of survivors. Along with her young adult children Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and her fiancé, Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis), she flees the city as society collapses and sets out on a journey that takes her from California to Mexico, Texas, and beyond.
Season 4 shifts focus to Morgan Jones (Lennie James), who started his own journey on The Walking Dead before wandering westward onto Fear the Walking Dead. He links up with new characters and the surviving members of the Clark party and sets out to rebuild society with a vision based on help and cooperation, not violence, while fending off threats that would destroy it.
Dave Erickson’s original three seasons are described as a family drama at the end of the world, with grounded interpersonal relationships and mature themes like drug addiction and generational trauma, while Seasons 4-8 under Chambliss and Goldberg have a more heightened style and playful, optimistic tone influenced by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Fear the Walking Dead has a sprawling cast that changes a lot season to season — the zombie apocalypse has a high mortality rate, after all. But here are some of the main players throughout the show’s run.
For the most part, Fear the Walking Dead takes place concurrently to The Walking Dead in a different part of the country. It starts at the very beginning of the zombie outbreak, two months before Rick wakes up from his coma on The Walking Dead. Morgan crosses over after the events of The Walking Dead Season 8, which means Rick’s people’s battle with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the Saviors happens a little bit before Fear the Walking Dead Season 4. In the final season of Fear, there’s a time jump that brings it in line with the end of The Walking Dead and the events of sequel series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead don’t intersect very often, but they do enough that you’ll need to have watched The Walking Dead to fully appreciate what’s happening in Fear starting in Season 4.
Initially, Fear the Walking Dead was conceived as a companion series set in the same world but totally separate from The Walking Dead. That changed when Walking Dead executive producer Scott M. Gimple became the chief content officer of AMC’s The Walking Dead television universe and created a network of Walking Dead shows. That’s when Morgan crossed over, followed by Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Sherry (Christine Evangelista), who had previously been members of the Saviors and came to Fear seeking a better life. Fear the Walking Dead also played a major early role in introducing the Civic Republic Military, which took Rick Grimes away in a helicopter in The Walking Dead Season 9 and became a major cross-franchise antagonist, especially on The Walking Dead: World Beyond and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.
In addition to Fear the Walking Dead, you can watch all 11 seasons of The Walking Dead on Netflix in the US. You can also stream Season 1 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which follows the eponymous crossbow-wielding, motorcycle-riding hunter played by Norman Reedus as he adventures through France. Fellow sequel series The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1, about Negan and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in post-apocalyptic Manhattan, and limited series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, which reunites Rick and Michonne (Danai Gurira), are coming to Netflix in the US in January 2025.
