Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Storytelling Takes a “Bold and Brave” Swing With Self-Contained Episodes

The sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead takes a “bold and brave” swing with 16 episodes that are largely self-contained, according to Morgan Jones actor Lennie James. Season 5 of The Walking Dead spinoff ended with Virginia (Colby Minifie) attacking and possibly killing Morgan after forcibly separating his caravan of survivors — including Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Victor (Colman Domingo), Wes (Colby Hollman), Daniel (Rubén Blades), Charlie (Alexa Nisenson), Dwight (Austin Amelio), Wendell (Daryl Mitchell), Sarah (Mo Collins), and newlyweds John (Garret Dillahunt) and June (Jenna Elfman) — splitting up the do-gooders across various settlements operated by the Pioneers, Virginia’s network of more than 800 survivors.

“They’ve taken a really bold and brave swing at the way we’re telling the story this season,” James told NME of the third season under showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg. “There was a bit more of a sense of the story being told as an anthology, and the episodes being more self-contained. It seemed to me to be very brave, and seemed to be working fantastically. The scripts and storytelling this year is at another level, and it was very exciting to see what they were doing.”

Filming on Season 6 taking place in and around Austin, Texas, was ordered to shut down in March amid the coronavirus crisis. Seasons typically film between November and June, but James is unsure when shooting might restart following what was originally announced as a month-long pause on production.

“Hopefully we get to have a chance to finish as much of the season as they were hoping for, because I think the stories that they’re trying to tell and the way they’re trying to tell them is really exciting,” James added. “I’d love to see the results of that.”

Walking Dead chief content officer and Fear executive producer Scott Gimple was the first to reveal the new season would present more standalone stories when he said the show will change “quite a bit” in terms of structure:

“There’s going to be a great deal more focus within the stories, a little less vignette-y in telling 16 little movies,” Gimple previously told Entertainment Weekly. “The guys are out of the gate wonderfully with the first two episodes, and it is a differentiating thing. It’s something that separates that show from the other two shows, telling these 16 little movies, being a bit more anthological. It still is a serialized story, but it’s told through these very focused perspectives.”

Fear the Walking Dead is expected to return to AMC with its sixth season later this summer. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.