‘Fear the Walking Dead’: Things Are “Only Going to Get Worse” for Alicia

Fear The Walking Dead star Alycia Debnam-Carey warns things are “only going to get worse” for Alicia Clark — now the lone surviving member of the Clark clan following the devastating season 4A deaths of brother Nick (Frank Dillane) and mother Madison (Kim Dickens).

“We’ve seen her in a really really dark place in the first half, and I can just say it’s only going to get worse. She’s the only remaining Clark. She’s the only person from the pilot still here,” Debnam-Carey told Entertainment Tonight during a visit to San Diego Comic-Con.

“She, I think, has had one of the biggest transformations out of anyone. She’s gone from a teenage girl, just a regular teenage girl, to now — her entire family is gone and she’s a warrior in the apocalypse. There’s some interesting stuff for her coming up, but we really just get to see her on her own completely.”

“One of the things our show allows actors to do, which a lot of shows don’t, is for their characters to genuinely evolve,” added The Walking Dead transplant Lennie James, whose staff-wielding Morgan Jones emerged as an ever-changing work in progress.

“For the characters to genuinely move from being one thing to being something other, and it’s something I think is one of the reasons why our fans are kind of compelled by what we do and are attracted to us, is because they have ownership of the journey of our characters.”

Added series newcomer Jenna Elfman, who plays June, “The change is dynamic, it’s not subtle.”

“It’s like, you really see human beings experience life or death and how it transforms them,” Elfman said. “Their character changes, their ideas change, and their actions change, it’s a dynamic experience to the whole.”

Danay García said Debnam-Carey has carried both the loss of her onscreen mother Madison and the real-life exit of actress Kim Dickens, whose unexpected sendoff from the series in the mid-season finale sent the cast reeling.

“And also watching Alycia too, because I come from the [season 2] Mexico experience, seeing her now dealing with this whole entire season, it was really hard for you,” García told Debnam-Carey. “She really, as an actor, had to really confront this every day. It’s not like a one episode [thing], it really carries.”

After struggling with even harsher and more violent tendencies in the front half of season 4 in the wake of Madison’s sacrifice — and then losing her murdered brother, shot and killed by former Vulture mole Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) — Alicia will be in a “very interesting place” when Fear returns for the back half of season 4 co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss told EW.

“She’s realizing that she is on her own and is figuring out how she can keep the memory of both Madison and Nick alive,” Chambliss said. “And a big part of what she’s going to be asking herself is whether she can fill Madison’s shoes and how that’s possible for her moving forward.”

Fear The Walking Dead returns with its mid-season premiere Sunday, August 12 on AMC.