The Walking Dead universe has been expanding since the original series first launched in 2010. There have been several spin-offs, including The Walking Dead: World Beyond, Tales of the Walking Dead, and since the original ended its run, the latest trio, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: Dead City, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. There has even been a web series. But the first spin-off came in the form of Fear the Walking Dead, which premiered five years after The Walking Dead and promised a new perspective on the outbreak.
Fear the Walking Dead got off to a great start with a new setting, a new cast of characters, and a chance to see character reactions as the outbreak was discovered, not just after. But somehow, the show began to waver much sooner than it should have. The series endured for eight seasons, ending its run in 2023. But it seems like the end of Season 3 was a pivotal turning point.
The First Three Seasons of Fear the Walking Dead
Fear the Walking Dead had a unique opportunity to showcase the panic before the outbreak began. On The Walking Dead, fans pick up six weeks into the mass discovery of the outbreak. Communities in Georgia have already been destroyed, the streets riddled with walking undead. Groups of survivors have formed and rallied, struggling to find food, shelter, and safety. Fans see the aftermath from the perspective of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who awakens from a coma to find that the world has drastically changed in the month and a half since he’s been out of commission.
Conversely, Fear the Walking Dead takes place in California. Strange things are starting to happen, but no one quite understands what is happening. Authorities see people they think are menaces to society but are shocked when they shoot them down, and the people get right back up and continue to attack, biting bodies and consuming flesh. It’s a slow burn through the first season, which is just six episodes long. But the inaugural season provides much-needed context and gives fans an idea of how an outbreak like this wasn’t initially discovered and reacted to.
There’s also a deeper story being told through the early seasons of Fear the Walking Dead. One of the first characters to accept and understand what is going on is Nick Clark (Frank Dillane), a young drug addict who at first believes he’s seeing things as a side effect of his drug use. He’s also the first to accept and acclimate to the new world, an analogy of the fact that he was already a version of the “walking dead” in the world before. In fact, fans see Nick cover his body and face with walker guts long before Rick and Glenn (Steven Yeun) figure out that trick in the main series.
The second season picks up with the group traveling by water, which provides yet another unique setting for this different part of the U.S. The eclectic mix of people come together, travel to Mexico, and meet others. Fans learn more about characters like Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and Daniel (Rubén Blades). One of the primary antagonists, meanwhile, turns out to be a teenager: Travis’ (Cliff Curtis) son, Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie).
There’s a lot about the human condition to learn in these few seasons, much like in the first few seasons of The Walking Dead, as the events show how different circumstances can affect people. Chris seems to have immediately lost all his sense of humanity, and he is more interested in finding people his age to whom he can relate. It instantly makes him hated, but it also explores how a real teenager going through coming-of-age challenges and typical teen angst might react to this situation. Meanwhile, Travis, a moral and just person, meets a rage inside him he likely never knew existed.
The third season introduces a new villain in Troy (Daniel Sharman), a troubled young man living on a ranch with his family as end-of-the-world survivalists already prepared for and anticipating this kind of event. In this season, Daniel also makes his triumphant return as tensions rise between him and Strand. But Travis also dies in an anticlimactic fashion. Rather than bleed out after being shot while in a helicopter, he falls to his death. And that’s that.
When Madison (Kim Dickens) later sacrifices herself by lighting the stadium on fire and closing the doors to protect her children, fans couldn’t believe the showrunners had killed off this show’s version of Rick Grimes. It’s later learned that she survived, but the presumed death of this main character marked a major shift in the series by the midseason finale of Season 4.
Nick’s Death and Where Things Went Wrong in Fear TWD
It’s arguably in Season 4, the halfway point of Fear the Walking Dead, where the show starts to feel different. It’s the first season where fans are missing characters who were around long enough for them to get invested in, like Travis and Ofelia (Mercedes Mason). This also marks the crossover appearance of Morgan Jones (Lennie James), who left his friends on The Walking Dead for a fresh start after suffering several mental breakdowns.
Morgan's intention was to breathe new life into this show, taking the place of Madison’s character as the group’s unofficial leader. He was joined by other new characters like Althea (Maggie Grace), John (Garret Dillahunt), and Naomi (Jenna Elfman). But it started to feel like too much of the core group was missing, and this was an entirely different show because of it. The season flips back and forth through flashbacks to help bring these new characters into the fold. But this diverts attention from the main group and the thematic structure fans had come to know and love. Arguably most tragic is that this is the season when, in the third episode, Nick is tragically killed by Charlie (Alexa Nisenson), a young girl sent by the Vultures to infiltrate the stadium where the group has found safety.
The decision was made because of Dillane’s desire to leave the show. According to Entertainment Weekly, he was getting homesick and felt like his character had “achieved what needed to be achieved…I thought it was time to keep moving.” But as a fan-favorite character, it left a massive hole in the series. Nick’s journey was a big part of the story, including how he coped with what was going on, stepped up to the plate, and rallied himself in the wake of his darkest days.
His story was one of hope, resilience, and purpose. He was one of the most fearless characters because he felt like he had already been dead for years, living as a shell of a person. He had nothing to lose. His relentless attitude to save others, despite not being able to save himself before the outbreak, was a story of redemption, and nothing like it has appeared on any of the shows since.
Fear the Walking Dead Became All About Morgan
From here, it appears that Fear the Walking Dead turns into the story of Morgan. While this is not a criticism of actor Lennie James, who brings tremendous grit, heroism, and talent to the role, the writing becomes repetitive. He goes from trying to find himself to trying to help others and looking for “a better way,” circling the drain of this sinking storyline over and over again. It begins with the “Take what you need. Leave what you don’t” boxes that fuel Morgan’s desire to create a better world. While it’s admirable and makes sense that Morgan feels like he needs a greater purpose to justify his existence through this harrowing situation, he starts to come across as someone with too big of a hero complex.
The episodes, situations, and villains also look like carbon copies of the ones that appeared on The Walking Dead, just lesser versions of them. While Morgan is a passionate leader — if a reluctant one — he doesn’t possess the right mindset that people like Rick or even Daryl (Norman Reedus) did. He’s a fighter; he has a moral compass, but he makes bad decision after bad decision, leading his group into danger, time and time again.
There’s a behind-the-scenes reason that things change so drastically in Season 4. The showrunner of Fear the Walking Dead was Dave Erickson in Seasons 1 through 3, but that job went to Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg for Seasons 4 through 8. The change in narrative, style, and focus was noticeably different, suggesting these men had very different ideas about the direction of the show.
This isn’t to say that the shift to Morgan as the group’s new leader nor the change in showrunners are solely to blame for Fear the Walking Dead feeling so different after its first three seasons. But these factors, combined with the departure of two main characters (including arguably the show’s best in Nick) and a well of ideas running dry, all contributed to the show feeling like a completely different one from when it started in its latter half.
Whatever the case, die-hard The Walking Dead fans stuck with Fear the Walking Dead and watched it all the way through. For fans who didn’t, there’s nothing to miss in the grand scheme of the overarching storylines that run throughout the main show and The Walking Dead: Dead City, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, and even the short-lived show The Walking Dead: World Beyond. At least for the first three seasons, Fear the Walking Dead was the first spin-off to let fans know that the challenges Rick’s group encountered over the years didn’t even scratch the surface of what was happening across the U.S. and worldwide. Stream all eight seasons of Fear the Walking Dead on Netflix and AMC+.
