‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Showrunners Tease The Final Episodes: “A Definitive Ending”

Like The Walking Dead before it, Fear the Walking Dead is coming to an end. Don’t worry, there will be plenty more zombie action on AMC and AMC+ in the future thanks to multiple spinoffs of the franchise. But the story that started eight seasons prior with the Clark-Manawa family at the dawn of the zombie apocalypse is coming to a close.

And though the family makeup has changed considerably over the years thanks to multiple character deaths and exits, the final six episodes — which begin airing weekly this Sunday, October 22 at 9 pm ET — will bring the story to what showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg believe is a satisfying conclusion.

“The most important thing was really making sure we gave these characters what feels like a definitive ending,” Chambliss told Decider, “where it felt like the journey that they started, whenever they entered Fear, came to a conclusion in an emotionally satisfying way.”

Without getting too heavily into spoilers, of the two episodes provided for press a large chunk of the hours are about bringing things full circle. Coming up this week on “Anton,” we see what Colman Domingo’s Victor Strand has been up to since we last saw him at the end of Season 7… And perhaps get the long-awaited reunion between Strand and Madison (Kim Dickens), who was presumed dead seasons earlier.

But perhaps the biggest full-circle moment is bringing back Troy Otto (Daniel Sharman). A charming psychopath who was heavily involved in the action in the second half of Fear Season 3, Troy was also presumed dead after being hit in the head with a hammer by Madison. He’s back, though, just like her, and looking for revenge as the primary villain of these final few episodes.

To find out more about what to expect, Decider talked to Chambliss and Goldberg about ending the show, Troy’s return, whether they have a final episodes kill list, and more. And head back here Sunday night after the episode airs on AMC for a breakdown of the big, spoiler-filled moments with the showrunners.

Decider: When you’re getting into final episodes like this, what is the goal in the room? And what is your goal as showrunners? What is the mission statement for these final episodes, so to speak?

Andrew Chambliss: Yeah, it’s a very good question – And one that we have asked ourselves quite a bit. We were very fortunate that we knew season eight was going to be the season that brought this show home. So we had a couple of things that were our guideposts. And for us, I think the most important thing was really making sure we gave these characters what feels like a definitive ending where it felt like the journey that they started, whenever they entered Fear, came to a conclusion in an emotionally satisfying way. And one of the things we did was look at where all these characters started, and then try to find a story that would help take stock of what their journey has been since we first met them, and put them in a place that really reflected back on how they’ve grown as a person. And really honor their history while at the same time giving a hint of who they are now and what their path forward might be.

In the writers’ room, how nihilistic does it get when you get that okay of, “Alright, we’re gonna finish off the show.” Do you start putting a kill list up on the board? Or how does that work?

Ian Goldberg: [Laughs] No, no kill list. Our approach is always, we start with theme and we start with character alphas and omegas is what we call them, where we have a general sense of where we want the story to go but it really begins with, where do we want these characters to begin emotionally? And where do we want them to end? And that’s both within an episode and across a half season, a whole season, that’s always been how we organize the storytelling. Season eight was the same thing. It was just on a bigger scale, because this was going to be the last chance we had to tell those stories. So that’s what drives everything is a beginning and ending place. And sometimes that involves a death. Sometimes that involves a loss of someone, a decision that a character makes, it could take so many different forms. But even in the.. even in a lot of the Walker set pieces that happened in the episodes, those are driven by character alphas and omegas. We want the fun genre element of the show to reflect the internal character stakes whenever we can.

I feel like this is going to be a similar answer based on what you’re saying. But there are a lot of fun callbacks and little easter eggs throughout the first two episodes. How do you rein it in? How do you decide, okay, this is something that’s just an Easter egg for Easter egg sake, versus something that actually is crucial and important for the plot?

Chambliss: Yeah, and you’re right. It does kind of go to what Ian was saying is that, in these conversations we have, you come up with all these amazing ways to reference the show and ultimately, the things that ended up making it into the show, all have to be there for a reason that serves the character’s emotional journey. It’s very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of putting as many Easter eggs in as we can. But we want them to mean something so that when the audience sees them, if you know, they’re fans of the show, who’ve been with it from the very beginning and watch very closely, they’ll appreciate it. But at the same time, it will mean something to someone who maybe is not as familiar with the show, because it has some inherent meaning within the narrative that everyone’s watching right now.

I wanted to talk about Troy… Why was he the right character to bring back as presumably the final villain for the final run of episodes?

Goldberg: Well, a few reasons. First of all, we love the character. We’re big fans of Daniel Sharman and what he brought to that role. So as we were thinking about the story for season eight and thinking about in particular Madison’s story, she’s in a place where she is trying to atone for the sins of her past. She’s trying to regain herself after all the things she had to do for PADRE. She’s trying to rebuild PADRE into the place that was meant to be. And so it was really compelling to us to bring a character back at that exact moment in Madison’s journey, who says “No, no, no, not so fast, your past is not going to stay buried,” because Troy has seen a very different side of Madison. He has, as we see, multiple axes to grind with her. And it really puts under threat Madison’s redemption story or her attempt to redefine herself to build PADRE into what she wanted it to be. Because her past is coming back to haunt her. It’s like Andrew was saying, it’s the embodiment of our theme of, the end is in the beginning. Madison’s history with Troy and season three at the dam is suddenly coming back into conflict with her right at the moment that she’s trying to move on.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC and AMC+.