Fear The Walking Dead [Warning: Contains spoilers for Seasons up to S6]

[Judderman]

Dwight is appearing as well. Definitely interesting, but there really can't be many survivors if anybody who wanders off ends up meeting the other known groups.

The Whisperers were in a warm climate.... maybe they disappeared to FTWD territory! :O

 

[nixie]

I was wondering if we would see Dwight again, hopefully he has found his wife and has finally redeemed himself.

 

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I was wondering if we would see Dwight again, hopefully he has found his wife and has finally redeemed himself.

No he hasn't. That one slipped away, and he's on a path trying to find her ... according to the article.

 

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The long-missing Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) is a “changed man” when he resurfaces in Fear the Walking Dead Season Five, says co-showrunner Ian Goldberg.

“Salazar has had an incredible journey from where we left him at the end of Season Three to where we will find him in Season Five,” Goldberg said at WonderCon in Anaheim, California.

“Over the course of Season Five you’re going to find out where he is now, what he’s been through, and you’re going to see how it’s changed him. And we’re going to see that the Salazar that we meet this season, while of course there’s history between the characters, he’s a changed man. Can’t say how he’s changed, but you’ll see that there’s been some real change there.”

The trailer, premiered at WonderCon, hints at a potential confrontation between a gun-toting Daniel and “frenemy” Victor Strand (Colman Domingo), who is again accused by Daniel as talking “too much.”

“He’s like a cat with nine lives, he’s like the Terminator,” Domingo said of Daniel, who was last seen being swallowed up by the Gonzalez Dam explosion triggered by Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) in Season Three.

Though Blades could give little away about his return, the star said he’s “very, very happy to be here” when thanking fans and WonderCon panel attendees.

“I’m really thankful to everyone for the support of the character, Daniel Salazar. I’m never sure what’s going to happen here. And I think no one is,” Blades said.

“In the show, all of a sudden you’re there, and then you’re not. The thing with Salazar is he’s like a cockroach, very hard to kill. He’s a survivor. So he keeps on going. I’m just very, very happy to be back with my old friends and my new friends. Thank you all, really, for keeping Salazar alive.”

Blades, too, is mostly kept in the dark, pointing to Fear executive producer and Walking Dead chief content officer Scott Gimple as being “very, very, very quiet.”

“I pretty much understand Salazar. So I can go back very easily to what he is. What is a little difficult at times is the writers always know more than you,” Blades said.

“And when you do that jump, you have to sort of go with what’s written, but at the same time, what the memory of what this character is. So that even when you give up the line, you’re still holding onto something, or give it an ambiguous delivery, so that you can always retreat, go back, once you understand what is really happening. Because they know more. I mean, I have a backstory that I wrote for myself, so I use that. But with these people, trying to get anything out of them is like pulling teeth.”

Daniel Salazar Is a “Changed Man” When He Returns in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Season 5

 

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it's not going to happen, not even the article writer believes it

A large portion Fear the Walking Dead fans have been longing for the return of Madison Clark since the character portrayed by Kim Dickens bowed out in the Mid-Season Four finale. Having never officially seen a body, fans have hung on to the slim chance that Madison Clark survived the fire at the baseball stadium in Texas. It sounds like Dickens might be hanging on to that same shred of hope but without quite as much optimism.

“As far as I know, she’s dead!” Dickens told MovieWeb. “It was the (acting role) I’m most proud of. Helping build that show from the beginning, across three different countries, that character was something I felt I had grown my whole career to get to play. I’m so proud of it, and it ended too soon for what I wanted, but there were a lot of changes over there creatively. I can’t imagine they would want to revisit Madison, but she was a great character. I’m so proud of it.”

Fans of both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead have long known not to assume a character is dead until they see a body. Glenn Rhee and Daniel Salazar are among many who returned after absences leaving them thought gone forever. Madison Clark's death itself was heavily implied (less than Glenn's was back during The Walking Dead's Dumpstergate scandal) and never fully realized on screen.

The show has undergone what is referred to as a soft reboot, bringing in a slew of new cast members and characters while wiping away several of the originals, Fear could benefit from bringing back one of its original stars. Though the show has garnered a bit of new interest by adding The Walking Dead's Lennie James and Austin Amelio as their respective Morgan Jones and Dwight characters, the core fans would be more likely to stick around or return if the original journey continued. The only cast members remaining from Fear the Walking Dead's first season are Alycia Debnam-Carey and Colman Domingo.

As the story goes, original showrunner Dave Erickson had planned on building toward a series finale where Madison Clark becomes a villain who ends up in a feud against her kids who are holding on to their humanity. The notion is not one which seems feasible at this point, though a return for the character with a villainous mentality could make for an interesting dynamic with Morgan as his hope for redeeming others is perpetually on display.

For now, there is no reason to believe Madison will be returning on Fear the Walking Dead.

'Fear The Walking Dead': Kim Dickens Open For Madison's Return

 

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Why is this making me feel so happy? And what's it about with the seventies action music?

Epic. Zombie-Wagon is back and now serving as the fleet protector. They'll have irradiated zombies. Zombie lanterns. Zombie fence. Also new child actors. Strand doing negotion. Over all it looks as if they're going to do major world building in this season.

The fifth season will get underway on AMC UK on Monday June 3rd at 2am, simulcast with the US.

Fear The Walking Dead season 5 release date, trailer and more

 

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Charging into its fifth season, Fear the Walking Dead is gearing up for the return of a fan-favorite character. After being sidelined for the entirety of Fear the Walking Dead's third season, Ruben Blades will be reprising his role as Daniel Salazar. The stay won't be permanent but he will have a brief presence on the AMC series, giving fans a taste of what the character has been up to since going down with the dam in the the Season Three finale a couple of years ago.

"It’s a character that we’re very excited to have rejoin the show, and I think the thing that excites us most about it is where we last left him," Fear the Walking Dead co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss told EW. "This kind of goes to why we haven’t seen him in all of Season 4 — because we last left him moments after Strand shot him in the face and left him for dead at the dam. We saw him stagger away at the end, but we don’t know what’s happened to him, where he’s been."

Salazar's story has been one of tragic loss and tremendous triumph, all rolled into one. "He’s a character who we’ve seen a very nurturing paternal side from, but he’s also a character that we’ve seen a very dark side from, who has a very traumatic past that goes all the way back to his childhood," Chambliss explained. "The thing that is most interesting to us is to explore what side of Daniel Salazar will win out in something as traumatic as what happened at the dam and what he was dealing with emotionally with the loss of his daughter."

Of course, in his final moments on the series in Season 3, he developed a possibly irreparable difference with Victor Strand. As seen in the trailer for Fear the Walking Dead's fifth season, the two will be reuniting and it probably won't be very pleasant. "The other thing that is very interesting to us is what’s going to happen when he finds some of these characters who he knew during Seasom 3," Chambliss said. "Obviously, the most explicit relationship is the one with Victor Strand. Strand has come a long way since he shot Daniel in the face. Strand has been seeking his own redemption, and I think the thing that will happen when Daniel Salazar enters the story is it’s going to make both men question who they are, whether they can overcome their past, and really test whether Strand has become a new man."

Fear The Walking Dead Showrunners on Daniel Salazar's Return

 

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New de facto group leader Morgan (Lennie James) will continue to be guided by two central figures from his past in Fear the Walking Dead Season 5: Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Eastman (John Carroll Lynch).

“When [Morgan] left Rick and Virginia, his focus very much was to be away from people, and not be anywhere near people, and to be on his own. Didn’t quite work out that way, and now he not only finds himself as part of a new group, but also – partly because of his history – how he survived in a role where they are looking at [him as a leader],” James told press during a set visit (via CinemaBlend).

“He has to start to make a choice about if he’s going to take that on, how he might [do that]. The way that he’s decided to take it on is by learning from the two obvious men that happen to be in his life that have taught him anything, and that’s Rick and Eastman.”

Rick and Morgan’s relationship extends back to the first season of The Walking Dead. Morgan later encountered loner Eastman in Season 6, at a time when Morgan was driven mad by the loss of only son Duane (Adrian Kali Turner).

It was Eastman who imparted onto Morgan the mostly pacifistic philosophies that have defined the character in the years since — namely “all life is precious” — a new way of life that carried over into Morgan’s debut season of Fear the Walking Dead, where Morgan tried to pass those same lessons onto a wayward Nick Clark (Frank Dillane).

Morgan departed Virginia after witnessing another major lesson handed down by Rick, who spared archfoe Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) after suffering the death of his own son, Carl (Chandler Riggs).

Though he didn’t stick around to see it, Morgan’s own teachings had an influence on Rick, who embraced a more benevolent and civil way of life in the 18 months that followed Morgan’s one-man trek west after the war against the Saviors was ended.

It’s an attitude that comes into play in Fear Season 5, where Morgan and company continue their goodwill mission to seek out and help needy strangers, guided by the cache of tapes collected by Althea (Maggie Grace).

“With the premise of Eastman’s philosophy being ‘all life is precious,’ I think that Morgan has taken that on, but in this environment, it’s that there’s a positive thing to ‘if we’re going to be alive, let’s be alive adding something positive into the world, because we don’t know how much longer we’re going to be here,’” James said.

“Everybody in this group is aware of how immediate death can be, and he wants whatever is in between today and death to at least be them trying to walk in a positive direction. To help folk.”

Two Walking Dead Characters Indirectly Influenced Fear the Walking Dead Season 5

 

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When it comes to original characters, Fear the Walking Dead is operating on short supply. Only Colman Domingo and Alycia Debnam-Carey appear on the AMC series as their respective Victor Strand and Alicia Clark characters from Season 1 on a regular basis. In the upcoming fifth season, Ruben Blades will return to the zombie show as Daniel Salazar, temporarily bringing another Season 1 character back to the popular series.

"The most challenging thing for Salazar for me as an actor is to try to understand what happened to him in the whole fourth season," Blades revealed to CBR. "How do I assimilate that and present it in the context of this new season?"

This will mark the first time that Blades works with showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss. The pair took over for Dave Erickson in the show's fourth season. Blades last appeared in the Season 3 finale with Daniel's fate being left ambiguous, though the creative team had later confirmed he survived what looked liek a treacherous fate. The adjustment in showrunners posed its challengers for Blades.

"Remember that we are all interpreting, but, in a way, we know our characters better than the writers I think," Blades said. "Because we've been with the characters and there's certain things that I'm sure Salazar wouldn't say, whereas to move the story one way it's needed for him to say something that maybe he wouldn't. So, you have to understand, my challenge is, why am I reacting this way to this because this is sort of a new situation, and then once I got information then to adapt myself to that."

As for his role in Season 5, Blades has to be discreet in the details he offers. "Salazar continues to be an ops guy," the actor said. "He's always like, Strand is always checking everything, Salazar is checking everything from the moment he goes in. He doesn't show up in any place where he doesn't know where the exit is. That's the first thing he sees. He's an ops guy, he's an intelligence officer, that's what his mindset is, but he has gone through a lot of changes." Still, the reunion between Salazar and Strand is something fans are very much looking forward to after their last encounter left the former with a bullet hole in his cheek courtesy of the other.

"He has to find a reason to live with his wife dead and his daughter dead and he's found one," said Blades. "Whether that reason is something he'll have found in the interim between Seasons 3 and 5, or whether he'll find it by joining Morgan's ranks, remains to be seen."

Fear The Walking Dead Star Ruben Blades Opens Up About Surprise Return

This Sunday.

 

[REBerg]

The arrival of the new season is really going to make my Sunday night. This series seams to be considerably less "dead" than its parent series.

 

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I'm glad it's going to be the highlight for your Sunday evening. I am also really wondering how Salazar is going to fit into the group. I get that Dwight is a born survivor and his role is most probably to be Morgan's to-go-guy, but Salazar might be the first half antagonist.

 

[REBerg]

Looks like they may be putting a little more humor in the mix -- Luciana's accordion playing fears, John's runaway hat, Victor's mouth. I hope they didn't squander them all in the trailer.

 

[ctg]

Fear the Walking Dead showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg were at the center of backlash on Twitter after Talking Dead opened the floor for fan questions.

The typically live aftershow hosted by Chris Hardwick, usually aired after premiere episodes of Fear and The Walking Dead, has aired irregularly for Season 5: Talking Dead only reconvened for the season opener, the mid-season finale and the mid-season premiere. Chambliss and Goldberg return to the couch for the Season 5 finale Sunday, Sep. 29.

When Talking Dead invited fans to submit their questions for the showrunners who boarded the spinoff in its fourth season, response from Fear viewers was largely negative

“How does it feel to ruin a show that was amazing?” reads the top reply. A subsequent tweet called Fear “a boring soap opera with no real direction.”

Another commenter accused Chambliss and Goldberg of “literally destroying” the show while others expressed anger over the decision to kill off former lead Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), who was replaced by Walking Dead transplant Morgan (Lennie James) as part of the first crossover between the two shows that kicked off a semi-rebooted Fear Season 4.

One user weighing in argued Fear has been destroyed “to the point of no return,” while another asked, “Why did you ruin the show?”

Others called for the return of co-creator and three-season showrunner Dave Erickson, who exited the series in 2017 when he inked a development deal with network AMC. Erickson has yet to produce another project for the cabler.

Fan reaction has worsened with each new episode. In reaction threads published by the official Walking Dead Twitter handle on Sundays, Fear often garners mixed-to-negative responses; in recent weeks, the spinoff has been called “damn boring” and “unwatchable.”

Episode 512, “Ner Tamid,” saw Fear hit a series low in viewership. But the following episode, which introduced new foes Virginia (Colby Minifie) and the Pioneers, saw a slight increase in viewers.

Despite its waning audience, Fear was officially renewed for Season 6 during San Diego Comic-Con weekend in July. It was there Chambliss and Goldberg promised a “big change” at the end of Season 5 that will “really change the show in a way that will launch us into Season 6, in a really big way.”

Elaborating on that major change in a subsequent interview, Chambliss said, “It’s something that we’re very excited about, and it’s really going to change the narrative approach of how we tell stories in Season 6.”

Fear the Walking Dead Showrunners Face Fan Backlash on Twitter

 

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Fear the Walking Dead is "going to change quite a bit" in its sixth season, according to executive producer and Walking Dead chief content officer Scott Gimple. Season 5 ended with Pioneer leader Ginny (Colby Minifie) forcibly separating the altruistic caravan led by Morgan (Lennie James), sending Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Dwight (Austin Amelio), Daniel (Rubén Blades) and other survivors to different settlements controlled by the Pioneers. The 16-episode season will tell "16 little movies," says Gimple, with the reinvented show "being a bit more anthological" in its approach to its storytelling for this next season, the third under showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg.

"Structurally, the show is going to change quite a bit. There’s going to be a great deal more focus within the stories, a little less vignette-y in telling 16 little movies," Gimple told Entertainment Weekly. "The guys are out of the gate wonderfully with the first two episodes, and it is a differentiating thing. It’s something that separates that show from the other two shows, telling these 16 little movies, being a bit more anthological. It still is a serialized story, but it’s told through these very focused perspectives."

Fear dabbled with more standalone episodes tightly focused on one or two characters in past seasons, including Season 4 episode "Laura," a bottle episode detailing the meeting between Laura/Naomi (Jenna Elfman) and future husband John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt) and Season 5 episode "The End of Everything," where documentarian Al (Maggie Grace) encountered CRM soldier Isabelle (Sydney Lemmon) in a so far one-off appearance.

"I think that’s going to be something that the audience really digs. There’s these episodes like Al and Isabelle or June and Dorie that were super focused episodes, that were some of our favorite stories to tell, and we’re leaning into that a little more," Gimple said. "That’s something that’s very exciting. Just what these characters are dealing with is very unusual to anything we’ve seen on the shows. Last season, there was a singularity of purpose, which is all these characters landed in this place of needing redemption. These characters are going to be in very different places now, and that’s going to add to the variety of storytelling, the conflict between the characters and the drama that springs forth from that."

When addressing the fifth season's poor reception from viewers and critics alike, Gimple said the sixth season fulfills "long-range plans" first put into motion with the fifth season. Audiences might have "different takes" on year five after fans "see the relationship between those two seasons," Gimple said.

Fear the Walking Dead Is Going to Change “Quite a Bit” in Season 6

Fear the Walking Dead is 'going to change quite a bit' in its sixth season, according to executive [...]

comicbook.com

 

[REBerg]

This approach might just be the boost the show needs. The do-gooder caravan theme wasn't that good from the beginning. "Leave your shelter and become a nomad with us" was never an attractive choice.

 

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So Morgan survives and everything goes sh*t.

A mysterious headhunter is after Morgan Jones (Lennie James), dead or alive, in the coming sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead. The show's Comic-Con trailer reveals a bounty set by Pioneer leader Virginia (Colby Minifie), who ambushed a lone Morgan and left him for dead inside a zombie-swarmed Humbug's Gulch at the close of last year's fifth season finale, "End of the Line." Virginia was forced to abandon the kill — she left her prey to be torn apart by walkers who didn't consume Morgan's body, according to a single glimpse of a red-eyed Morgan — and now she's hired a professional to answer a burning question from Season 6: Is Mr. Jones alive or dead?

Morgan's pursuer is revealed as Fear series newcomer Demetrius Grosse (The Rookie, Westworld), whose character wields what appears to be a hay hook. The headhunter uses his weapon to swiftly decapitate a man before storing his trophy — the man's zombified head — in a picnic basket labeled "Walter," placing next to it another picnic basket marked "Morgan Jones."

"He is very much a cynic and a pragmatist; you know, he lives on his own out in the middle of the woods," Grosse said about his mysterious character in a January interview with Inside the Black Actors Studio. "It was an interesting world to be in and I got to play in a different space that I'm used to. I had a chance to work with some amazing actors and producers."

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Reveals Mysterious Headhunter Pursuing Morgan

A mysterious headhunter is after Morgan Jones (Lennie James), dead or alive, in the coming sixth [...]

comicbook.com

Where does the dead come into the equation? I'm sorry to be hyper critical but I feel that they need to do something major to fix Fear or it'll just sink into the category of promising, but cocked up at the end series. They are supposed to show that the dead still rule the world.

 

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Fear the Walking Dead season 6 premieres on Oct. 11 at 9 pm ET on AMC. Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Teaser Confirms Morgan Return | Den of Geek

Fear the Walking Dead Star Teases “Dark” Season 6: There’s “Messed up Stuff Going on”

Fear the Walking Dead star Jenna Elfman is the latest cast member to warn of a 'dark' sixth [...]

comicbook.com

 

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Fear the Walking Dead star Jenna Elfman says she was unaware the show planned to kill off then-lead Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) when joining the Walking Dead spinoff in its "reworked" fourth season, which installed Morgan Jones (Lennie James) as new series lead. The revamped fourth season, the first under executive producer Scott Gimple and showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, revealed Madison was dead midway through the season just episodes after the surprise death of son Nick Clark (Frank Dillane). In exit interviews following her departure from the show, Dickens admitted to feeling "shocked and disappointed" upon learning Fear's new creative team was moving on from Madison Clark.

"I'd never had that experience before ... to come into an ensemble that's already flowing but knowing it was being kind of reworked," Elfman told the Talk Dead to Me podcast, adding she "had great admiration for the cast that was already in existence."

"I didn't know anyone was getting killed off when I took the job, at all," she added. "I had no idea until my first day."

It wasn't until Elfman arrived for a wardrobe fitting and meetings that she learned Fear was killing off its leading character. "I was like, 'What?!'" she recalled. "I had no idea."

Fear the Walking Dead Star Had “No Idea” the Show Was Killing Off Madison Clark

Fear the Walking Dead star Jenna Elfman says she was unaware the show planned to kill off [...]

comicbook.com

 

[Judderman]

I imagine Jenna Elfman was very disappointed, knowing that two of the main characters (and good actors) were both on their way out. Considering the third season was so good. Although it did mean she had more chance of a bigger role.

 

[ctg]

Yeah. I was disappointed on their decision and I think I voiced it in the posts.