Why No One On Fear The Walking Dead Would Survive

Fear The Walking Dead takes place in Los Angeles during the very earliest stages of the zombie apocalypse, when everyone still has running water, electricity and day-to-day responsibilities ... for a while, anyway. Compared to their Georgia-based, Walking Dead counterparts, and because life and culture in Los Angeles is vastly different than it is in the semi-rural American south, the characters in Fear The Walking Dead have little to no survival skills in their terrifying new world. Here are just a few reasons why they probably wouldn't last long in an outbreak. Warning: spoilers ahead!

Nick Clark tells his family about a horrific scene he witnessed at a drug den. Instead of calling the police, his mom's boyfriend, Travis Manawa, just moseys into the drug den at night, alone, and unarmed. Whether or not a zombie outbreak is happening, it's a really bad idea to stumble blindly around a dark shack that's potentially full of junkies desperate for a fix or dealers out to get money and give snitches some stitches. Madison sneaks out of the gated compound to investigate nothing in particular, putting herself at risk of not only walkers, but also military fire. Seriously, Travis and Madison probably wouldn't survive a trip through Candyland, let alone a post-apocalyptic world of walking corpses.

Don't get us wrong, addiction is a serious and sad disease. Heroin addiction will make its sufferers see, do, and believe a lot of things that aren't healthy, wise, or safe, because, well, survival isn't their priority. When Madison and Alicia Clark follow Nick around, they act like he knows something that they don't. And maybe he does, but why would they believe him? It's not like he's made great life decisions up to this point.

If it's unclear how a major pandemic is spreading—just that it is spreading—it's a good idea to steer clear of sick people. Instead, we have Alicia giving herself a prison tattoo and pining for her bitten boyfriend (the same guy she almost visited when he was suffering a scorching fever early in the outbreak). We've got Travis making physical contact with blood in a crime scene. And we see Nick using intravenous drugs. If zombies or stray bullets don't kill them, communicable diseases will likely do the trick—especially since medicine is so hard to come by.

Alicia thinks she'll do great in college, get a job, and marry her high school boyfriend, and live happily ever after someday. With or without the zombie apocalypse, the odds of any of those things happening in today's economic and social climate are slim.

Nick, Madison, and Alicia have no problem entering their neighbor's empty home, but when they spot Mr. Dawson in their own house, they freak out. This would have been flagrantly avoidable if they hadn't left the door wide open behind them.

Civilization is about to collapse, so they plan to go to an arid area where they can't grow food and will likely run out of water quickly (especially since, you know, they didn't bother bringing any with them). This will end well.

Fear The Walking Dead does a splendid job of showing the parallels between crippling addiction and the collapse of society as we know it through walkers. When Nick is sick with withdrawal symptoms, Madison ventures into the high school where she works to get him painkillers and almost doesn't make it out. The family continues to house, clothe, feed, and protect him even though he just can't (or won't) get his life together. At some point, they're going to need to turn the guy loose. If that means he's going to run half-naked around a dangerous neighborhood that may or may not have flesh-eating reanimated corpses, so be it. Because everyone has to follow their own journey in life.

Travis asks his son Chris to help Madison keep the house (and Nick) in order, and he's useless. Instead, he insists on chasing a flashing light he catches from his roof, determined to try saving someone miles away instead of safeguarding those under the same roof as he is. And it's not just the angsty teenagers who roll their eyes at authority figures: when the National Guard comes in to protect the neighborhood, residents get rude and belligerent with the servicemen and women trying to keep them safe and walker-free. Madison bickers with Travis when he meets up with neighbors to offer aid to a friend crippled by fear. Part of what makes society work is the ability and will to work together, if gradually, for the greater good. Once that crumbles, so will everything else.

While they may make current civilization less, well, civilized, you need them when civilization crumbles. Who do you think has all the guns?

Characters witness a police officer stowing cases of bottled water in his trunk, and instead of grabbing food, water, batteries, or other supplies for themselves, they leave with the clothes on their backs and Alicia makes sure to take her earbuds. While Madison is in the school to pick up prescription drugs for Nick's withdrawal symptoms, she saves Tobias from being bitten while he tries to chase one rogue can of tomatoes, despite having an entire cart full of them. Can you imagine these clowns even living through the average Black Friday sale?

Nick has seen a lot of horrible things during his time as a heroin addict, yet when his drug dealer, Calvin, drives him to an isolated, abandoned riverfront, he's completely taken by surprise when Calvin tries to murder him. Really, bro?