Fear the Walking Dead’s Chris is fast going the way of Shane, Ron and Lizzie.
Chris is going off the rails quickly.
When the second season of Fear the Walking Dead began, it picked up where the first season ended. Chris had just lost his mom and he was reeling from the knowledge that his father killed her. The idea that she was going to become a walker hadn’t sunk in yet. On the one hand, he was dealing with her death, and on the other, he was furious that it was his father who ended her life. This juxtaposition was keeping him from moving forward, and as the youngest member of the group, he was really struggling with it all.
Once on-board the Abigail, Chris kept to himself. Daniel immediately noticed and made several comments that this was not a good thing. Chris needed to move on lest he sink further into the abyss of his depression. More than that, however, Daniel knows that this is more than depression; this transition into a new world has been like jumping into a freezing lake for Chris. The speed of the transition is getting to him. Imagine being a teenager in the middle of the apocalypse and your father just killed your mother. Now your father, the man who should be on your side, is the enemy. The problem is that no one knew whether or not there had been a cure, so it’s possible that Chris, at that point, was still holding out hope that his mother could be saved.
Last week he prematurely killed Reed after Reed taunted him, and in doing so he almost jeopardized the hostage transfer. Daniel warned him not to listen to anything Reed said, and he expressly told Chris to wait outside the room — but Chris didn’t listen.
This week was the tipping point. Upon arriving onshore, Chris stood back and watched as Madison was being attacked by the undead parishioners. Unfortunately for him, Alicia saw the whole thing. She was able to jump in and save her mother, and later she was confronted by Chris, who backed her into the wall and told her that she didn’t see what she saw. He flat out threatened her to not reveal what she’d seen. When Alicia begrudgingly told Madison what happened, Madison went to Travis, who implored Madison to help him help Chris. Travis used a low blow, comparing Madison’s trouble with Nick to the situation with Chris, which is nowhere near the same. Chris is dangerous, and he runs the risk of becoming even more dangerous if this behavior isn’t stopped.
Madison opted to sleep with Alicia, and Chris found his way into their room in the middle of the night. When Strand’s gunshot rang out, Madison and Alicia wake up to find Chris standing beside the bed with their knife. Now it looks even worse.
Fear the Walking Dead is only in its second season, so it’s difficult to link it to The Walking Dead season-by-season. However it’s clear that Chris is starting to become as unstable as Shane was in the end. Shane didn’t agree with Rick’s decisions, so he took matters into his own hands, stopping at nothing to achieve his goals. Chris is following this pattern; not only does he have to contend with the whole teenage angst thing, but he’s also dealing with the freaking apocalypse. If he keeps this up, his actions will get someone killed, and he’ll be left with the blame.
I mentioned “look at the flowers” Lizzie only because she’s the cautionary tale of what happens when someone goes completely off the rails in the apocalypse. Rick saw through Shane and could see what he was doing. Lizzie was completely nuts. Chris is standing on the precipice of insanity, and what happens in the next episode will determine whether or not he jumps into the loony pit.
For more coverage of Fear the Walking Dead, please visit our hub page.