‘Fear The Walking Dead’ finale explained: what happened to Madison Clark?

Kim Dickens in 'Fear The Walking Dead finale

Fear The Walking Dead has officially come to an end after eight seasons.

The Walking Dead spin-off originally began in 2015 and served as a prequel, led by a dysfunctional family featuring Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), her daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and her son Nick (Frank Dillane).

In later seasons, the show featured crossovers with the main show, with characters like Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and Dwight (Austin Amelio) making appearances.

Fear The Walking Dead’s final two episodes, titled Fighting Like You and The Road Ahead, aired November 19 in the US and saw numerous deaths and surprise returns.

Who dies in the Fear The Walking Dead finale?

In the two-part finale, there were two key deaths. After attempting to seek revenge against Madison and Troy (Daniel Sharman) by luring them to a creek full of walkers, Crane’s (Daniel Rashid) plan backfires as Madison draws more walkers to the creek, who eventually overwhelm and devour Crane.

The second death is Troy, who is stabbed by Madison in a shock twist despite the pair entering a truce. In his final moments, Troy claims Tracy (Antonella Rose), the young girl he had raised and who eventually betrayed PADRE, is actually Alicia’s daughter, making her Madison’s granddaughter.

Troy Fear The Walking Dead
Daniel Sharman as Troy in ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ season eight. CREDIT: Seth F. Johnson/AMC

What happens to Madison?

In her last bid for redemption, Madison appears to sacrifice herself in order to save the community at PADRE from the impending walker horde. In a scene echoing her sacrifice at the baseball stadium in season four, Madison blows up the walker herd by leading them to PADRE’s storage of fuel.

While she appeared to have been killed in the explosion (just like in season four), Madison’s breathing body is later discovered by Tracy in the rubble.

Later in the episode, Madison regains consciousness with Tracy by her side, only to be greeted by her daughter Alicia – who had been assumed dead following her disappearance in season seven.

Alicia then debunks Troy’s claim that Tracy is her daughter, explaining that she never had any children and Tracy is the daughter of a survivor called Serena who passed away. In the final scene, the three women are seen heading back to where it all began: Los Angeles.

What have the cast said about the finale?

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Dickens explained how showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg originally pitched the ending as showing them arriving in LA.

“That’s the way the guys originally pitched it,” Dickens said. “The last half of the season was going to be a road trip and then we were going to be pulling into East LA. And that’s when we were going to go to black. I think they wanted to try to get the high school. It was such an iconic piece when it started in Los Angeles.

“Obviously, it foreshadowed a lot of stuff we were really going to go through in some ways, but it was such an iconic, unusual thing to start the piece like that in LA. And for me, I think it would be satisfying to go back to an apocalyptic Los Angeles at that point.

“It’s like the way they’ve gone in Dead City into the urban areas, and even to France. We didn’t see the full apocalypse in Los Angeles, and I think that would be fascinating. It felt right to me.”

Fear The Walking Dead is available on AMC in the US and through BT in the UK.

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