Sunday night marked the premiere of "Fear the Walking Dead," the spin-off/prequel series of AMC's undead hit "The Walking Dead."
The show opens with Nick (Frank Dillane) a drug addict waking up inside an abandoned church-turned "shooting gallery" after a heroin bender. Looking for his girlfriend Gloria (Lexi Johnson), a dazed Nick finds her covered in blood and chomping on another man's neck.
Panicked, Nick runs into the street -- and into a passing car.
The accident shows that the new show has, as promised walked back the walker apocalypse chronologically, taking place in a modern day Los Angeles that's all too normal: traffic, gluten intolerance, bickering siblings, texting teens, and all.
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Throughout the episode, we get hints of what's to come; increasing school absences, word of a spreading flu. While Nick recovers, Madison returns to work, as a guidance counselor at a school in which Travis teaches. A troubled student she saves from expulsion confides in her, saying, presciently, "No one's going to college."
Meanwhile, Nick confides in his stepdad that he ran because he saw Gloria eating the other people. Thinking it's the drugs talking, Travis returns to the church to look for clues. Instead, he's confronted by a grisly scene: a bloody floor, and a panicked, hiding junkie who runs terrified when Travis finds him.
Nick convinces a nurse to free a hand, and he attempts to escape -- just as his hospital roommate succumbs from what we assume is the deadly flu going around.
Nick makes a break for it, stealing his now-deceased roomie's clothes and wallet, which he uses to buy a burner phone to try to get in touch with someone.
With Nick missing, his mom and stepdad return to the church to try to find him, only find his drugs. Instead they pay a visit to his friend Calvin (Keith Powers) but also come up empty.
Maddie and Travis take to the freeway to try to find Nick, but end up in a traffic jam that seems to be the beginning of the end of the world as they know it.
The next day, a handful of students show up at the school. Teachers gather to watch video of the traffic situation the night before -- in which an accident victim gets up after being injured, bites a paramedic, and becomes unstoppable -- until a cop lands a headshot. "This here's the new real," one of Alicia's friends says as they watch the footage on her cellphone.
Alicia's boyfriend isn't answering her texts, and we learn Nick has been trying to meet Cal, who isn't just his old friend, but his drug dealer. Nick wants to know if the heroin he was sold made him hallucinate the horror at the church. Cal insists his drugs weren't spiked, and promises to get him high to calm him down. Instead, Calvin takes Nick to a desolate area and tries to kill him, fearing he's told the cops about his line of work. The pair struggle over Cal's gun and it goes off, killing him.
Nick's mother and stepdad find him, and he's panicked over the shooting. They return to the scene of the altercation, but don't find Calvin. They assume Nick hallucinated, and that's when they see Calvin -- in walker form. Maddie tries to tend to him only to have walker Cal try to bite them both -- until Nick runs him down with the truck. Twice.
As the episode ends, we see the characters starting to get hip to what the viewer already knows: something very bad is happening, and will only get worse.
"Fear the Walking Dead" returns Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.