Did ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Just Get An Unexpected ‘Walking Dead’ Crossover In Episode 5?

Fans eagerly wishing for a crossover between Fear The Walking Dead and the original, The Walking Dead, may have just gotten their wish with Episode 5. However, the crossover is not exactly what fans expected.

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses Season 2 of AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead as well as plots from the comic book series, The Walking Dead. Please proceed with caution if you wish to avoid spoilers from either.

Many fans have been eagerly awaiting a crossover between Fear The Walking Dead with the show that started it all, The Walking Dead. While AMC has blown out rumors this would happen, it seems they still found a way to make the fans happy. As Variety noted, Fear will never be able to crossover with The Walking Dead due to a chronology so far apart, as well as a “continent between them.” But AMC is always there when it comes to interesting Easter eggs on The Walking Dead, so they have now managed a crossover of sorts between the two Walking Dead shows.

Fans who read The Walking Dead comics would have been the ones to pick up on the crossover. And it would have started right around the time Daniel Salazar (Ruben Blades) took an interest in newly turned Reed (Jesse McCartney). In the comic books, Negan employs a similar tactic when in negotiations with Alexandria. Using the newly turned Holly, he puts a bag over her head and takes her back to Alexandria, pretending she is not of the undead persuasion. When they arrive at Alexandria, it is Denise who pulls off the bag and gets bitten on the arm by the walker Holly. In Episode 5 (entitled “Captive”) of Fear The Walking Dead, it is Reed who is bagged and returned. Connor is the one who takes Denise’s place and gets bitten by Reed.

There are a few interesting things to note, First is the fact Negan has only just arrived in the TV version of The Walking Dead. This means this scene is yet to arrive in The Walking Dead. So have AMC decided this crossover to Fear The Walking Dead would be preferable to showing it on The Walking Dead? As Fansided noted, the original comic book scene was a “powerful scene that helps establish just how much Negan loves to play with the people of Alexandria.” So will ditching the scene altogether from the companion series ruin Negan’s impact? Maybe. Or perhaps they will use the same scene again in The Walking Dead. Also, does this make the crew on board the Abigail the equivalent of Negan’s group already? And here we are thinking Alex was the biggest bad to come out of Fear The Walking Dead so far.

Another interesting thing to note is the fact the character, Denise (played by Merritt Wever) is already dead in the TV series of The Walking Dead. She took the arrow that belonged to Abraham in the comic books. Confused yet? Well, hold onto your hats because in the comic books, Holly was also the girlfriend of Abraham. She was returned as a walker after Abraham took the aforementioned arrow to the eye.

So did AMC know all this as they worked on both Walking Dead series? Apparently not. When Entertainment Weekly spoke to Fear’s showrunner, Dave Erickson after Episode 5 aired, it seems the scene was just a coincidence.

“It’s just a similarity because I missed that issue. None of my EP [executive producer] partners mentioned that, so it is a coincidence. I guess it’s tricky when you’ve written as many issues as Robert has, I guess it’s inevitable that there’s going to be moments when we echo something from the comic book, but it was not intentional, but if people want to take it as a homage, all the better.”

Even if it is a similarity, could this sort of thing happen more often now between Fear The Walking Dead and the Walking Dead comics? Only time will tell.

Did you notice this crossover between Fear The Walking Dead and the Walking Dead comics? Let us know by commenting below!

Season 2 of AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead returns next Sunday, May 15, with Episode 6, titled “Sicut Cervus,” at 9 p.m. ET. The official synopsis for Episode 6 is as follows.

“Conflict arises as the Abigail approaches its destination; Chris makes a staggering decision.”

[Image via Peter Iovino/AMC]