‘Fear The Walking Dead’: Are We Up To Where Rick Wakes From His Coma Yet?

AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead begins at the start of the zombie apocalypse we are all familiar with in The Walking Dead. It is a glimpse into the time fans missed while Rick Grimes lay in a coma. But, now, as Fear reaches the halfway point in Season 2, just where is the time frame in relation to Rick Grimes’ coma?

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses AMC’s The Walking Dead and its companion series, Fear The Walking Dead. Please proceed with caution if you wish to avoid spoilers.

Ever since The Walking Dead started, fans have been wondering what the beginning of the apocalypse looked like. How quickly did it take for the infection to get out of control and spread? Just how quickly did it take for civilization as we know it to collapse? When Fear The Walking Dead was announced as a companion series to The Walking Dead, fans were excited because they would finally get these questions answered. But where do we stand now, time-wise, in Fear?

Fear’s showrunner, Dave Erickson, says the pilot episode starts around the same time as when Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) was shot in Episode 1 of The Walking Dead ‘s Season 1. “Our starting points are similar. The first day of our show is around or about the day that Rick was shot and fell into his coma,” he told Tech Insider.

But, just how long was Rick in his coma? If we look at the very first episode of The Walking Dead, we can see bodies that have been dead for a while. We also know from what the show’s creator, Robert Kirkman, has said in interviews, which Erickson confirms in his interview with Tech Insider, that Rick Grimes was in a coma for approximately four to five weeks.

If this is the case, where are we up to — time-wise — in Fear The Walking Dead? Have we bridged the gap yet between Rick getting shot and the moment when he wakes up alone in the hospital? According to CinemaBlend, Fear’s showrunner, Dave Erickson, has stated the mid-season finale of Fear The Walking Dead comes very close to the point when Rick awakens from his coma in The Walking Dead.

“If you marked off the days [that have passed on air since Fear the Walking Dead debuted], I think right now, by the end of the first half [of Season 2], we’re getting very close to Rick waking up in Georgia.”

So, that means nearly four to five weeks have passed since the pilot episode of Fear,wherein Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) first encounters the undead Gloria (Lexi Johnson). We are not quite at that point where Rick wakes up and discovers the world has been infected while he was in a coma. CinemaBlendthen go onto speculate that by Season 3 of Fear The Walking Dead, the show could “already be past the CDC’s last days and well into the Search For Sophia.” If this is the case, it would mean Season 3 will begin at least 63 days since the disease went global, according to what Doctor Jenner said in Episode 5 (entitled “Wildfire”) of Season 1 of The Walking Dead.

Season 2 of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead returns Sunday, August 21 with Episode 8 at 9 p.m. ET. It is anticipated Season 7 of The Walking Dead will premiere the week after the conclusion of Season 2 of Fear The Walking Dead.

The official synopsis for the second half of Season 2 of Fear The Walking Dead is below.

“As Fear The Walking Dead embarks on the second half of season two, the Clark, Manawa and Salazar families fracture. The events that took place at the Abigail compound have set all of our heroes adrift. Now they must forge their own paths to survive.”