What We Want To See In Fear The Walking Dead Season 2

Fear the Walking Dead seemed like it was going to be a between-season, maggot-infested appetizer for The Walking Dead, but it became so much more. Chronicling the collapse of a Los Angeles suburb as the zombie virus crawls and drools its way across the United States, Fear the Walking Dead follows one extended family's struggle to understand and survive the chaos. While the first season was only six episodes long, the Fear has promised to return with a full-length second season. So, what do we want to see in season two?

Strand seems like a weird cartoon of a smooth-talking car salesman, and we meet him in the government's detainee center, where he negotiates with guards and antagonizes other prisoners, eventually taking drug addict Nick under his wing. He's bizarrely out of place among the frantic and desperate characters we usually see, so what's his deal? All we know is that he's a rich guy who plans to ride out the apocalypse on a luxury yacht, but he speaks very little of himself. Why does he sound like a smooth jazz DJ? And will he become a believable character?

Nick Clark, heroin addict and community college dropout, has been dead weight since the first episode. We all know how the zombie apocalypse goes, and it's not kind to Brandon Lee-lookin' weaklings. Nick isn't the kind of person who has anything to offer anyone in the new order, unless someone manages to cook and eat him. It's just not believable that he'd survive much longer than he has, siphoning morphine off of dying people and ransacking houses for pills instead of food and resources, or even clothing that fits him.

We've never seen how winter treats the human survivors, or for that matter, the zombies. Do the dead get slower in the snow, or do they change colors? It took The Walking Dead over five years to make it out of Georgia, where it doesn't fall below freezing that often. Let's see some weather that includes something other than sweltering heat or general atmospheric comfort. If the movie Dead Snow is any indication of how terrifying snow zombies can be, Fear the Walking Dead should get icy as soon as it can. Everyone wants to see a zombie's face impaled on an icicle, right?

The characters in Fear haven't really experienced the depths of hygiene deprivation that the apocalypse can bring, but if the core Dead series is to be believed, Rick's beard is a pretty good compass of where the show is going during any given episode, even if no one else ever seems to get too hirsute. Beardy benchmarks are the language of Dead. We need to see a group of people adjusting to going without their middle-class luxuries, and failing. Right now, everyone seems pretty composed. There's no way that lady isn't freaking out about missing Real Housewives.

While it's nice to get out of Georgia and Virginia for a while, the zombie story of suburban Los Angeles still isn't a huge thematic leap. Watching diverse populations cope with the virus would be a compelling way to really explore the world of Fear The Walking Dead, rather than maintain the intense focus on small groups of people in two suburban locations. What about a small town in New York's Hudson Valley? A mountain hermit in Colorado who comes down from his shack for the first time in months? What's it like in the President's bunker? Will Canadian politeness survive? How about the Australian outback? Give us some more context!

We're pretty sure that the second season of Fear will involve Strand's fancy boat, but what's out there? Strand seems like a guy who knows people, but are any of them out on that boat? And what if they're dead already? If Strand is any indication of zombie preparedness, the wealth of some might just be enough to pull them through the storm. No one's ransacked or squatted in Strand's house, even though it's one of the few that has electricity, so we can probably assume that his rich pals are similarly set up. In a world where money has begun to lose meaning, how prepared can you possibly be? And how's Lady Gaga doing these days?

Straight out of Davy Jones' locker, there have to be dead guys at sea, or even better, pirates who use dead guys as weapons. Compared to other zombies-as-weapons techniques we've seen in Dead, it seems pretty straightforward to lure a bunch of undead onto your boat, secure them, and release them on other boats. Zombie adventures on the high seas? Why has this not already happened? Either way, the possibility for watery weirdness should be explored...in depth.

Easily the show's best character, even despite his limited time on-screen, the chubby kid who brought a knife to school seems like the kind of guy who could either use his brains and horror movie knowledge to survive the zombie plague, or be the first dumbo to die. If Eugene could make it in The Walking Dead, there's lots of hope for Tobias. He's the most astute guy in all of Los Angeles, and his loose story thread should be resolved, even if the dude gets killed by choking on his Count Chocula the next day.

We're over 70 episodes into various Dead shows, but not a single person has actually used zombies' difficulty using stairs to their advantage yet. Sure, zombies can shuffle up a slight incline, but it's become very clear that hip joints are the first thing to go when you die. Walkers generally lack the coordination to use a simple staircase, unless they're newly-dead. Forget about building walls around your camps, guys. Just surround yourselves with a few step stools and you'll be completely safe. The fact that no one has leveraged this yet is Dead's greatest mystery. And if they make it up some steps? Push 'em back for the ol' zombie domino effect.