Fear the Walking Dead was created in part to expand Robert Kirkman’s zombie universe to show how the other side of the country was handling the apocalypse, and viewers have gotten to see a surprising number of different locations in the season and a half that have aired. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Fear actress Alycia Debnam-Carey and I asked her about new environments coming to Season 2 and how having all these area changes has affected the show. Here’s how she answered.
“Our group stumbles on a hotel, which was a really great tool for us to be able to introduce some new characters. And new, also local characters from where we were shooting. So we’re shooting in Mexico and finally we get to actually introduce people of that country, and that was really great because it’s a totally different dynamic. Language, we get to play with, and culture, so that was really exciting. Definitely gave a different flavor.”
This is precisely one of the things that I have enjoyed so much about Fear the Walking Dead so far. So much of the horror genre exists entirely in limited spaces, whether it’s a haunted house or a neighborhood or a weird cube machine. And yes, that includes hotels, too, which Alycia Debnam-Carey hints is coming to this show. (It can be seen in the trailer the show released a few weeks ago.) But does anybody really expect Madison, Strand, Ophelia and Alicia to stick around in this place until Season 3 comes around? It’s not the best bet. Looks like a nice place, though.Like The Walking Dead before it spent a limited first season traveling through Atlanta, Fear the Walking Dead spent its initial episodes getting familiar with the ins and the outs of Los Angeles (and a suburb). But while Rick & Co. spent way too much of Season 2 in and around Hershel’s barn, the first half of the companion series’ second year has taken its central characters off-land and out to sea for a while, hitting up a few locations as it became clear the Mexican city of Baja California was the destination of choice. And then they actually went to Baja California, where a bunch of horrible shit went down that splintered the core group.
As you can imagine, the second half of Season 2 will follow the different groups – with Nick heading into some particularly intriguing places – which means we’re getting even more different settings beyond the hotel mentioned earlier. And while she didn’t tease any other future whereabouts, Alycia Debnam-Carey did talk a little more about why she personally loves when productions take her outside her normal locales.
“I love working on location because it changes all the time and it’s new and exciting and you get to see so many cool new places and immerse yourself into the environment. But it also means that, yeah, you’re away from home and you aren’t in the same space. And especially working in Mexico, too, there’s a lot of differences. Like the language barrier or food, which were all amazing at the same time.”
As someone who is terrible at picking up other languages, spending months at a time in a different country is almost as intimidating to me as fighting off zombies. Not really, but my communication skills would be the same in both situations. In any case, I love that Fear the Walking Dead is able to bring in local citizens from the different locations to give the episodes that much more authenticity.
Thankfully, The Walking Dead is about to enter what could be its most location-filled season yet, with new areas such as the Kingdom, the Sanctuary and more coming in Season 7; but it’s hard to forget all those years where it just felt like the survivors were just walking through the woods. Fear the Walking Dead has yet to get static with its environments, and we certainly hope the show keeps that refreshing vibe going for as many years as it’s on the air. But
Fear the Walking Dead will return to AMC for the second half of Season 2 on Sunday, August 21, at 9:00 p.m. ET. To learn when and where everything else will arrive on the small screen later this year, check out our fall premiere schedule.
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