Fear the Walking Dead bosses explain decision to write out star

Why did Fear the Walking Dead do exactly what they did with Sunday night’s midseason finale? It’s an understandable question, mostly because there seemed to be a lot of frustrated viewers the moment that it was over. We’re not going to deny that seeing characters talking about Madison sacrificing herself for others was powerful; yet, at the same time there could have been other ways to tell a story of her sacrifice. That just didn’t happen.

One of the biggest questions that we’ve wondered coming out of the finale was simply about whether or not AMC was setting us up for a troll job on the same level of what they decided to do with Glenn previously on The Walking Dead proper (#DumpsterGate), but it does not appear like that is the case here. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series bosses Andrew Chambliss and Ian B. Goldberg confirmed multiple times that Madison is in fact dead and that her sacrifice will stick. She’s not off under a dumpster somewhere.

As for why the showrunners made the move, a big part of it has to do with furthering along a message of hope that they are trying to press throughout the episodes ahead. Here is what Chambliss had to say about reinforcing that theme as some of these episodes were being planned:

“…We were going to take these characters from a hopeless place to a place of hope. It was shaped around them losing the glue that held them together. It was about taking away the thing that helped all these characters live a better life in the stadium, and seeing how they would react to it and if they could come back from it. That was part of the whole conceit of the season from the beginning.”

This is, in part, what made this time jump so important. For a period of time, some of these characters managed to figure out an existence at the stadium that wasn’t terrible, at least via Walking Dead franchise standards. However, that society is gone and they have to figure out how to move forward. Maybe they are on their way now, but it’s still going to take some time to get to where they once were. It may not happen this time until the end of the season.

Related – See what Kim Dickens had to say on the subject of her exit

For more on this move, be sure to check out the video below and subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for more. Also, be sure to like CarterMatt on Facebook to retrieve even more TV insight. (Photo: AMC.)