4.05: Fear the Walking Dead - Laura

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John and the Muddy Dead (Photo by Richard Foreman Jr/AMC)

The arrival of a wounded visitor in John Dorie's life forces him to change his ways.

 

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Q: How would you say a character like John Dorie fits into this world?

A: In a way, everyone fits in. It’s the world. We were all here when the apocalypse hit. [Laughs] I guess it’s more about who has an easier time surviving in this world.

Q: You have history with Kim Dickens from your time on Deadwood. Was it fun to join her on Fear?

A: I’m a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, though I haven’t gotten to do much of it. It’s been great to hang out with her… great to have her to bounce things off of and it’s great to be in the same town. We’re all new to Austin, so we all get to explore together… There’s great music and there are great places to be outside. I love riding my bike around Austin. It has a small town feel to it even though it’s becoming quite a large town.

Q: Can you talk about the growing friendship forming between John and Morgan?

A: It seems like you don’t really get to choose who you meet in this world… Morgan happens to be the guy that’s there and it was a good sign that he was trying to save me from a walker. I think John’s well-suited for this kind of thing. He seems to be one of those people that manages to look at life as the glass half full and keep a small sense of humor. I think there are times where you see it’s not all sun and light for him. He’s clearly hiding a deep sadness and loneliness. He does not let Morgan go in that first episode.

Q: What was it like spending an entire episode with your character and getting a peek at what his life was like before we meet him in the premiere?

A: When you’re on set every minute, you learn a lot about your character. In fact, you learn so much that you almost want to go back and reshoot the episodes you already shot. I feel like a lot is revealed. I’m really proud of that episode and I felt like we were making something special.

There were harsh conditions. It was unexpectedly cold. The carpenters were amazing and built us a cabin in two days, but it was very drafty. [Laughs] It’s pretty impressive what the crew managed to do in such a short time. It was glorious when the weather was nice. We got to canoe and I thought, “I’m getting paid to canoe!”

Q: How has his time in isolation informed the person he is now?

A: I got to wrap my head around just the kind of person he is. He’s from another time and way of thinking. He’s polite, honorable and loyal – maybe to a fault. It was good to see how he can survive so well on his own. He’s handy in the woods, he’s capable and he’s someone you’d like on your side. He might be a little too trusting of people. He gets in trouble quite a few times with rescuing Morgan. He’s got to up his defensiveness and awareness. Maybe that’s something Morgan can give him.

Q: John refuses to believe that Naomi is dead. What kind of impact did she make on him from their time together?

A: He fell in love with her, so the impact is pretty large. She’s the reason he’s not in that cabin anymore. You meet him in Episode 1 when he’s been on the road for a year looking for her. He uses his gun right away, at least on walkers, so he’s at least gotten over that fear. Maybe she released any feelings he had about who he was. He uprooted his whole way of doing things. He’s clearly decided that it’s a silly thing not to hold onto love when you find it in a world like this.

(SPOILERS) Fear the Walking Dead Q&A — Garret Dillahunt (John Dorie)

 

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Fantastic episode and up there with Morgan's own tale of the redemption. I'm not going to put JC in the kill-list as he has already proven how useful he can be for the living ... if he wants to. It's the wants to part that is the problem for his character. Although he killed a fellow trooper and got everlasting PTSD's because of that, I believe there's more to his story about how he fared in the apocalyptic turmoils that turned Earth to Kirkman's world.

The alone episodes are glorious one, but in the long run, you can only have so many before the audience starts to feel overwhelmed by it as they did during the Road to Alexandria. I think John could have lived forever in his little fishing cabin if he'd wanted. He would have had to upgrade the ditch to a proper mote with walls to survive the random Muddy Dead invasions like the people back in the olden days. In many ways the golden medieval period would properly overwhelming for the dead, just because the swordsmen could clear out so many walkers from harassing people.

In many ways Laura has to be the most romantic episode in the history of the walking dead. I cannot for the life of me remember another warm and fussy episode as this one was. All I can say is that Morgan and JC are meant to be with each other. They both have deep mental wounds and they both think similarly.

One question though how scary was that machete zombie? I was with Naomi, begging JC to shoot it. I loved the zombie removal team and I laughed a lot for them falling off the bridge.

 

[REBerg]

Devoting an entire episode to putting flesh on a new character's bones after raising so many questions in the opening season episodes left me chomping at the bit.
OK, John is a nice guy and a talented addition to the team who gave his heart to a woman with zombie apocalypse commitment issues. I question why the entire plot had to be brought to a halt to make that point.
Get on with the main backstory, I say!

 

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Get on with the main backstory, I say!

You really want to know what happened to Madison? If she isn't dead already, then she's in a very bad place and when she hears the news about Nick ...

 

[REBerg]

You really want to know what happened to Madison? If she isn't dead already, then she's in a very bad place and when she hears the news about Nick ...

No doubt. I mostly want to see how the stadium settlement ended, which would probably include the fates of Madison and Naomi.

 

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I mostly want to see how the stadium settlement ended, which would probably include the fates of Madison and Naomi.

The mid-season final is only three episodes away. I believe that at point we'll see how the Diamond failed. Thing however is that the stadium stands as do Walker's bunker. Neither one of them went away. Only people failed.

 

[Judderman]

I think Madison and Naomi must still be alive at the stadium. Or escaped. Just presumed dead as Alycia says they couldn't have got out. I would actually be amazed if they were dead. Particularly as this episode was almost half for Naomi's back story. I'm still feeling disappointed about this Fear reboot considering season 3 was perhaps the best of any Walking Dead related season. Part of the reason for that is how the story progressed relatively quickly. But again there were some good parts in the episode, just feels a little slow progress for the show. They want us to care about these new characters, so it makes sense Naomi is still alive. As well as Madison. I can't see them having one lookback episode and showing their deaths. I can see that there will be some look back in episode 8, and then their survival will be revealed in 9 or 10.

 

[svalbard]

Devoting an entire episode to putting flesh on a new character's bones after raising so many questions in the opening season episodes left me chomping at the bit.
OK, John is a nice guy and a talented addition to the team who gave his heart to a woman with zombie apocalypse commitment issues. I question why the entire plot had to be brought to a halt to make that point.
Get on with the main backstory, I say!

Agree. Pure filler. They are falling into TWD trap here for which we rightly criticised that series for.

 

[grip junky]

I liked this episode a lot. I wish they would do more one off type episodes, I think some of that, at this point on the walking dead would be much better than some new adversary. I do not know how much quicker a pace the show could go Nick is dead, Naomi dead and Morgan walked half way across the USA. I have been loving the shows.

 

[Judderman]

One good thing for the backstory episode was at least it was almost totally focused on that backstory. Not jumping all over the place between past and present.

 

[nixie]

I thought this was a beautiful episode, nice too see a little of John's back story and why he is so hung up on Laura.

His friendship with Morgan looks to be good for Morgan.