Will The Walking Dead Universe’s Astronaut Reanimate As A Zombie?

Spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead‘s midseason 3 finale follow. The two-hour episode aired on Sunday night.

In the two-hour midseason 3 finale of Fear the Walking Dead, the AMC series did something neither it nor its older sibling series The Walking Dead has done before: introduced a man in space. The morning after a drunken and possibly suicidal night, Victor Strand woke up to the sound of the Abigail yacht’s radio picking up the signal of a Russian cosmonaut. After responding the the voice, Strand and the audience learned that the entire world had fallen and this man had watched it all go down from space.

The news motivated Victor Strand to burn the Abigail and find new reason to survive in this world which is in complete ruin. However, for cosmonaut Vaschenko (voiced by David Agranov), fate is not much of a choice. According to showrunner Dave Erickson, the man is “essentially going to fall into the Earth’s atmosphere and die.”

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This raises an important question in the Dead universe: will the cosmonaut reanimate at a walker? The answer is “No.”

Vaschenko would have had to leave Earth prior to the zombie virus becoming airborne and infecting every living being. As fans know, characters reanimate upon dying, whether or not that have been bitten or scratched by the infected due to the fact revealed by Dr. Edwin Jenner in The Walking Dead‘s TS-19 episode. Dr. Jenner revealed to Rick Grimes that the virus was airborne and infects everybody and the same rules apply to the characters on Fear the Walking Dead. Unless the strain can survive a trip through Earth’s atmosphere, into outer space, and through the space station or suit which Vaschenko is residing in, the character will never become a walker.

In any case, fans will never learn the exact fate of Vaschenko following his introduction in Fear the Walking Dead‘s Children of Wrath episode. Erickson ruled out any possibility of the character appearing on the AMC series beyond the midseason 3 finale. “No,” Erickson said. “You will not. Mr. Vaschenko is not to recur. No.”

MORE WALKING DEAD: FTWD/TWD Crossover Theory Finally Addresssed / Dayton Callie Explains Jeremiah’s Complexity / FTWD Introduces Astronauts, Confirms Worldwide Virus / Mercedes Mason On Ofelia’s Big FTWD Twist / FTWD Showrunner Previews Season 3B / FTWD Voice Over Actor Dies In Skydiving Accident

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Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC. The Walking Dead will return for its eighth season in October with a trailer coming in July at San Diego Comic Con. For complete coverage and insider info all season long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.