SEASON 5

Comic pages from The Walking Dead #69; art by Charlie Adlard and tones by Cliff Rathburn.

Season Five

The Talk of the Town

The postapocalyptic landscape unearthed a barrage of unique settings in season 5, hopping from creepy man-eating camps and spooky backwoods churches to, finally, a relatively peaceful walled community of survivors called Alexandria

TILL DEATH DO US PART The survivors flee Terminus.

THE NEW SURROUNDINGS WERE A WELCOME dose of variety in a show dominated by forest scenes. “After a while running through the woods does feel a little repetitive,” SFX whiz Greg Nicotero conceded at the time.

To the delight of hardcore fans, the season also brought greater fidelity to its source material. “This season is following the comic-book story line pretty closely,” Robert Kirkman said at season’s onset. “Possibly closer than we ever have before.” Showrunner Scott Gimple agreed: “There’s just so [many big moments] in the books that I’m excited about getting to.”

A barrage of potentially deadly new characters also made their entrances. One important figure to emerge from the comics was Father Gabriel Stokes, the deeply religious minister encountered by the group on the way to Alexandria. Played by Seth Gilliam, a standout actor from HBO’s The Wire, the character’s questionable past and traumatized nature added a new sensitivity to Rick’s increasingly cold-blooded family group. “Seth is amazing,” said Gimple. “He’s a tremendous actor.”

The Alexandria Safe Zone, also much anticipated from the books, presented a new world for our heroes to navigate. Led by the intelligent and politically calculating Deanna Monroe (Tovah Feldshuh), the villagers didn’t uniformly accept their new arrivals, all of whom surrendered their weapons and participated in Deanna’s mandatory interviews in order to be welcomed inside the town’s walls. “We need people who have lived out there,” Deanna tells Rick, asking him to help the sheltered Alexandrians adapt to their new world.

It isn’t all that simple. The first encounter with an innocent Alexandrian named Aaron (Ross Marquand) was marked by paranoia and violence, as Aaron was slugged and tied up by Rick, in a stark reminder of how far the group has fallen into darkness since season one. Rick’s war-hardened survivors almost entirely regarded the weak, untried Alexandrians as liabilities, which only furthered the division between the two factions.

Tensions increased when Glenn battled a shifty antagonist who was responsible both for the death of newbie Noah (Tyler James Williams) and also blamed Glenn for the death of Deanna’s son Aiden (Daniel Bonjour); Carol manipulated the housewives to gain possession of their weapons; and Abraham took command of the construction of a protective wall when the previous crew chief proved inept. But it was Rick’s slow-brewing confrontation with the surgeon Pete (Corey Brill), a hard-drinking wife-beater, that left Deanna’s husband dead—and gave Rick the opening to seize control of the town.

At season’s end the survivors had established a new home in Alexandria, which came complete with its own set of unique vulnerabilities to the outside world. One thing above all was clear: The Ricktatorship was back in effect. Whatever happened from here on out, good or bad, would be on his shoulders. —RAY RAHMAN

NO ASYLUM Father Gabriel’s church is one of the main locations for the first half of season 5.

Beth and newcomer Noah attempt to escape the Grady Memorial Hospital, wading through a pile of corpses.

GORE AND MORE “With my background in premed, I’m all about muscles and ligaments and things,” says makeup guru Nicotero, who oversees all of the walkers on the show.

Even the confections get the Walking Dead makeup treatment. Here, one of the crew eyes a creepy corpse cake.

Season 5 introduced some new visual stunts, like this fried zombie.

REVOLVING DOOR One man panics; another man dies. Noah (Tyler James Williams) meets a grim end, separated from Glenn by only a pane of glass.

SIGNS OF LIFE Rick warns other groups away from Terminus.

Extras waiting for their scene attempt to keep cool in Atlanta’s heat.

Deanna, the conflicted leader of Alexandria, welcomes Rick and the other survivors into her home.

FEAR THE WALKING DEAD

APOCALYPSE SOON

Before the end of the world, there was the beginning of the end of the world. That’s where the spin-off Fear the Walking Dead starts: a preapocalypse Los Angeles that had only just begun to grapple with the darkness lurking around the corner.

Launched in August 2015 by the same minds behind the flagship series (Robert Kirkman serves as executive producer), the sister series took fans out of the woods and introduced them to a new collection of survivors. Fear follows an everyday couple—guidance counselor Madison (Kim Dickens) and teacher Travis (Cliff Curtis)—and their three children. They eventually escape from L.A., trading the city for the sea, and pick up new characters along the way. Over its two seasons, one theme has remained constant: family. “It plays into our biggest fears,” said Dickens. “‘What if we’re not protected? And what if we can’t protect ourselves?’ ” Here are some highlights. —RAY RAHMAN

Travis Manawa (Curtis), son Christopher (Lorenzo James Henrie) and Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) run for safety in L.A. as panic leads to rioting.

A former refugee and a barber by trade, Daniel Salazar (Ruben Blades) trusts few. His daughter Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) does her best to soften his edges.

Madison’s son Nick (Frank Dillane), a recovering heroin addict with an independent streak, proves to be unusually suited for apocalypse.

Celia (Marlene Forte) looks after Thomas Abigail (Dougray Scott), whose partner is the mysterious Victor Strand.

Victor Strand’s (Colman Domingo) plan to escape on his luxury yacht gets derailed quickly—everyone is held hostage by sinister seafarers.

Madison (Dickens) goes to great lengths to keep her family, including daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), safe—and together.

The Moment

MICHAEL CUDLITZ Q&A

Eugene Tells Abraham the Truth

DARK TIMES AHEAD Immediately after the big reveal, McDermitt got a shaky reception from fans of the show. “Eugene isn’t everyone’s favorite person at that point,” McDermitt says with a sigh. “I literally [had] people screaming ‘Liar!’ at me on the street. But I would rather have them screaming that than ‘Pervert!’ ” With the revelation of Eugene’s deception, on top of the killing of Beth at the hospital, it’s fair to say the group had seen better days. “They’re lost emotionally and geographically,” says Scott Gimple. “They don’t know which direction is safety, they don’t know which direction is hope, and things are going to get worse before they get better.”

It was the lie that saved two lives. When Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) was at his lowest point and about to commit suicide following the death of his family, a mullet-sporting scientist named Eugene (Josh McDermitt) appeared asking for his help. Eugene’s mission—getting to Washington, D.C., to help save mankind—gave Abraham a new purpose for living. It was a win-win situation—that is, until that scientist revealed he had lied in order to secure Abraham’s protection. And then, in an instant, all of Abraham’s pain returned—right before he delivered some physical pain of his own to Eugene. We spoke to Cudlitz about the takedown. —D.R.

Let’s talk about Abraham’s reaction to Eugene’s big fib that he’s not actually a scientist. We get both the calm and then the storm, don’t we?

It starts with the repeated failure of Abraham trying to get this mission going and make sure that he gets Eugene to where he needs to get him to. So while Abraham is at his most frayed and very much at the end of his rope, Eugene makes this admission that it’s basically all a lie. For Abraham, there’s this huge flood. Not only was this all falling apart, he was completely at his wit’s end. But then he realizes that every single thing he has done up until this point has basically been for nothing.

But was it more than just the realization of the futility of it all?

It’s not only the people that he has killed to keep this guy safe, but it’s the people who have died along the way to keep this guy safe. So there’s a tremendous amount of turmoil inside of Abraham. He’s basically having a nervous breakdown because he can’t process all of this at once. And then for some reason, Eugene thinks it would be wise to point out that he is actually smarter than Abraham.

And that’s the snapping point? Because up until then, it looks like Abraham’s mind is in another place.

He’s trying to process everything that’s gone on. It’s like, “What? Are you f---ing kidding me?” He realizes that this is the truth. He’s just putting everything together in his head until he says that one specific piece of dialogue, and then everything turns to anger and gets unleashed on Eugene.

How do you transition from such a quiet place to immediate pure and utter rage?

I think it’s simmering. You push it down. The strength of the show is that the circumstances and the reality are so heightened, but it has to be grounded in a very real place or else it doesn’t work. Because we have so many “ridiculous” things that we do, if it’s not anchored in reality, I don’t think it’s believable at all.

So you pop Josh a bunch of times in the face in front of that fire truck. I know precautions are being taken, but how do you sell that aggression while making sure you don’t actually hurt your fellow actor?

Things are planned out very specifically, and cameras are placed in the exact proper place. That particular fight sequence—or ass-whooping sequence, I guess you’d call it, because it’s more of a beating that is handed out—was shot in such a way that it was very easy to keep everyone safe. I was very far away from Josh at all times. They shot it with a long lens, which compresses all the action. As long as I’m in between him [and the camera] and he’s reacting properly, it sells.

Do accidents ever happen?

Sure. I’ve been punched square in the face many a time. Never on this show, but it happens. We try not to do it, but everybody understands that there’s a little bit of a risk involved. Nobody’s going to die, you know?

What’s so fascinating about this scene is that while Eugene lied to Abraham to save himself, he really saved Abraham with that lie as well.

Absolutely. He saved his life, and that’s not lost on Abraham over the course of the series, and that is why there is such an affinity. You can go back even to when they hadn’t made up yet, when Eugene goes to drink the water that was left by Aaron on the road, and Abraham smacks it out of his hand, because protecting him is so ingrained in him. And he’s not sure anymore at that point if it’s just a habit or if he actually has genuine feelings for this person. And as we realize through the series and up until last season’s finale, he absolutely does.