There will be blood — but whose?
Fear the Walking Dead writers dread killing off their beloved characters
Fear the Walking Dead
Season 3 debuts Sunday, AMC Robert Kirkman completely understands why fans get passionately upset when one of his beloved characters meets his or her maker.
He feels your pain. Widespread death is a reality in the scorched zombie-ridden worlds Kirkman created for his comic books and their TV adaptations, AMC’s Walking Dead and its prequel spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead.
People die all the time. But the decision about just who will die is not made lightly. Or comfortably.
He says there’s always that unsettling moment in the writers’ room when it dawns on the scribes that a certain character may not be long for this post-apocalyptic world.
“It’s an organic process,” he says. “When it starts to show itself, you get kind of nervous. You’ll be plotting out a story and you start to see that the most important thing or the biggest catalyst that could lead more story is a particular death.
“It’s at that very moment where you start to get upset about it,” he says. “There’s regret that sneaks in and all kinds of emotions, on this side of things. We usually have to spend weeks and months solidifying it, making sure it is the path we want to go down and it’s definitely the thing we need to do. Those times are hard, because often times you are interacting with the actors and they have no idea. So it is sometimes awkward.”
Kirkman is promoting season 3 of Fear the Walking Dead, which kicks off Sunday on AMC. To be clear, he is not talking about any impending or specific death on Fear the Walking Dead or even The Walking Dead, just the general “you never know when your time is up” phenomenon that permeates both series.
In Fear the Walking Dead, the apparent demise of young Christopher Manawa (Lorenzo James Henrie) in season 2 may not have had the seismic impact on viewers as, say, Glenn Rhee’s gruesome death in the Walking Dead’s seventh season. But it still had an impact.
“If you’re only telling stories that make fans happy, well, fans are going to get bored at that point,” Kirkman says. “It really does have to be a roller-coaster ride. I’m really happy that Walking Dead fandom is in for the long haul. They roll with the punches. When a beloved character dies and they’re upset, you’re supposed to be upset. The fact that you are upset tells me we’re doing our job.”
Kirkman co-created Fear the Walking Dead with showrunner Dave Erickson back in 2015, as a prequel and companion piece to the Walking Dead, which was based on the comic books he created with Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard. It began just as the zombie-apocalypse is about to hit, plunging everyone — including the blended Clark-Manawa family — into chaos.
Kirkman is an executive producer and writer for both shows. Just as the original series arguably hit its stride in season 3 with the introduction of beloved characters such as Michonne (Danai Gurira), and memorable villains such as the Governor (David Morrissey), Kirkman says Fear the Walking Dead’s third season will be a game-changer as well.
As the season starts, the beleaguered Clark-Manawa clan is dealing with death and separation, not to mention the onset of some unsettlingly violent characteristics in our protagonist Travis (Cliff Curtis), after the murder of his son. His partner Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) continue to search for troubled son Nick (Frank Dillane).
Without giving away too many spoilers, season 3 will see the family come into contact with a new community called the Brokejaw Ranch. Led by survivalist Jeremiah Otto and his two sons, this group may be better suited to enduring the apocalypse than any community we’ve seen before in the Walking Dead universe.
“It may not be the apocalypse they were expecting, but Otto’s ranch is very well armed, very well stocked ...,” he says. “Even Alexandria was not as well prepared as the people of Otto’s ranch are. So it’s a much different setup. It’s a much different kind of person who lives behind those walls and I think you can expect a much different kind of outcome.”
The complex relationship between Otto and his children will continue to build on a recurring theme on Fear the Walking Dead. From the very first episode, the series has explored the dysfunctional family and troubled bonds between fathers and sons.
“There’s mother-son, fatherdaughter, father-son — I think Fear the Walking Dead is a very familycentric show,” Kirkman says. “I think Walking Dead focuses on a group of characters who have become a family. Most of the families get torn apart in pretty quick fashion in the Walking Dead and by keeping the Clarks somewhat intact in Fear the Walking Dead, I think it is putting a focus on how a family survives in the apocalypse.”
When a beloved character dies and they’re upset, you’re supposed to be upset. The fact that you are upset tells me we’re doing our job.