Essay on Fear the Walking Dead: The Good Man Episode

Fear the Walking Dead is an American television series whose distribution began on 23rd August 2015 when the first episode originally appeared on TV screens. It is a prequel and companion series to the Walking Dead series, founded on a witty book series of a similar name. The comic book series was written by Charlie Adlard, Tony Moore and Robert Kirkman. This genre is an apocalyptic horror and drama show whose syndication mode was television. Fear the Walking Dead is affiliated to AMC. This genre was created by Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman. The first season premiered on AMC on 23rd August 2015. Season 1 of this show consisted of 6 episodes that lasted until October 4th, 2015. Season 2 of this show premiered on 10th April 2016 and comprised of 15 episodes that run until October 2nd, 2016. On 15th April 2015, AMC renewed the series for the third season to consist of 16 episodes that is scheduled to air on 4th June 2017. Moreover, AMC announced that Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss would replace Dave Erikson as the series showrunners for the upcoming fourth season. In its pilot stages, the series was set in Los Angeles, California but was also later set in Mexico as well as Vancouver, Canada. This paper will dwell on the sixth episode titled, The Good Man as directed by Stefan Schwartz.

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The plot of this show revolves around a blended but dysfunctional family comprised of a high school counselor, Madison Clark, her boyfriend Travis Manawa, and her son Nick, a drug addict. Also starring in the show are Alicia, Madisons daughter, Chris, and Liza Ortiz, Travis ex-wife. Other guest characters that appear in the serial narratives subsequent multiple episodes are Griselda, her husband Daniel and their son Ofelia, Dr. Exner, Strand, and Adams. The family must learn new skills, reinvent themselves, and adopt brand new attitudes to survive the zombie apocalypse as civilization crumbles around them.

The Good Man episode aired on AMC on 4th October 2015 in the United States at 1:00 am (BST) for fifty-two minutes. The outstanding production filming was done by Sky bound and Valhalla Entertainment. Three different families are intent on leaving their homes because of Operation Cobalt. Daniel wants to kill Andrew, but Travis comes to his defense that without Andrew, they may not be able to locate Nick, Liza, and Griselda in the post. Travis can convince Daniel to let Andrew go along with them. The group is unaware of the situation on the ground, evacuates the neighboring families and drives with the others to the headquarters of the National Guard to rescue Nick, Liza, and Griselda. Travis lets go of Adam who now becomes their guide on the way. They succeed in infiltrating the base after the guards are distracted by Daniel. Madison, Travis, Ofelia, and Daniel enter the while Chris, and Alicia watches behind with their cars. Nick and Strand try to escape, but the walkers can breach the perimeter and start to swarm the compound. Travis and his companions can free detainees from the holding cells before they reunite with Liza, Nick, and Strand.

However, as they try to escape through the ward, they discover that Dr. Exner has managed to euthanize all the patients in the ward. He tells the group to escape before he seemingly commits suicide. As they try to escape, they meet Adams, who tries to shoot Ofelia. Travis is furious with Adams for shooting Ofelia and brutally beats Adams for dead. The group is led to the Oceanside Mansion, where Nick reveals to them that he owns a yacht called Abigail for which they will escape. However, when they reach the beach, Liza tells Madison that she has been bitten by the Zombies during the escape. She pleads with Travis and Madison to euthanize her before she transforms into a Zombie because the antibiotics are not effective against it. Travis is convinced they can save Liza and is completely heartbroken and distraught. Travis then takes a gun from Madison and shoots Liza. A gunshot sound is heard. Chris and Alicia try to locate the source while Strand and Nick wonder about the origin of the gunshot sound. Chris discovers the body of Liza and begins to cry while Travis is heartbroken by the turn of events. He kneels down to the ground, but Madison comforts him in his grief.

A textual analysis of this horror show reveals some conflicts in the families as they try to devise new attitudes to survive the Zombie apocalypse. Conflict arises between Andrew and Daniel from the Operation Cobalt. Daniel is enraged with Andrew that he attempts to kill him only to be persuaded otherwise by Travis. Ofelia also has a rage and conflict with Travis for the keeping her fathers role in torture campaigns against civilians in El Salvador a secret. However, Travis argues that he was only doing that to Ofelias safety. Conflict is also evident when the group meets Adams who shoots Ofelia. On seeing this, Travis is so enraged with Adams that he brutally and mercilessly beats him and leaves him for dead. Additionally, at the parking space, Chris notices shadows of Zombies behind Alicia, and they both enter into a car. They believe that they have been infected therefore want to hide until they pass and three soldiers shatter the window and pull them out. Chris refuses to give one of the officers the car keys and another officer tries to harm Alicia. A conflict ensues between Chris and the police for grabbing Alicias hair, and he punches the soldier down.

The aspect of conflict resolution emerges when Daniel is angry at Andrew and tries to kill him. However, Travis saves him by managing to convince Daniel that without Andrew they may not succeed in locating Nick, Liza, and Griselda in the command post. Travis is successful in persuading Daniel to drop his intent of killing Andrew allowing him to accompany them. As the episode draws to a close, Andrew begs Daniel to let him go because he is convinced that Daniel would eventually kill him. Travis relents, and they let him go thereby resolving the conflict that ends up saving Andrews life. Additionally, Travis manages to reconcile with Ofelia by putting aside their differences. He asks her for help to carry out the groups plan. Travis argues that he did not tell Ofelia about her fathers role in the torture campaigns in El Salvador a secret to keep Ofelia safe. Madison is also able to stop Travis from killing Adams after he shoots Ofelia. Reconciliation is one of the most commonly used methods of conflict resolution and has been extensively used by characters such as Ofelia and Travis (Baker, Pebsworth & Radhakrishna, 2017)

I regard Chris and Travis as aggressive characters with low integrity. This is portrayed by their actions when Chris beats up a police officer while Travis beats Adams and leaves him for dead. I also think that Ofelia, Madison, and Daniel are considerate and peacemakers who have high integrity. They reconcile conflicts in this horror show especially when they put aside their differences either by saving others from being killed or outright reconciliation. Chatzipanagiotou, et al., (2016) point out that reconciliation aims at ensuring peaceful family survival that threatens the cultural standing of the families, especially in this horror show. Fear the Walking Dead received top ratings with a viewership of over 8 million across the US.

References

Baker, M., Pebsworth, P., & Radhakrishna, S. (2017). 12 Conflicted Primatologists: A Survey on Primatologists Views on Conflict and Resolution Between Human and Nonhuman Primates. Ethnoprimatology: A Practical Guide to Research at the Human-Nonhuman Primate Interface, 76, 154.

Chatzipanagiotou, K., Gounaris, S., Boukis, A., & Perks, H. (2016, June). Applying a Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis for Conflict Resolution During New Service Development. In 2016 Global Marketing Conference at Hong Kong (pp. 79-79).

Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman (Writers), & Stefan Schwartz (Director). (2015). The Good Man [Television series episode 6]. Ian B. Goldberg, Andrew Chambliss (Producers), Fear the Walking Dead, Los Angeles, California, Vancouver, Canada; Productions by Sky bound and Valhalla Entertainment