‘Fear the Walking Dead’s Kim Dickens: Killing Madison Before Nick Was a “Disservice”

Killing ferociously protective mother Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) before son Nick (Frank Dillane) [...]

Killing ferociously protective mother Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) before son Nick (Frank Dillane) "does seem to be a disservice," according to Dickens, whose Madison chronologically died before Nick met his own end three episodes into Fear the Walking Dead's fourth season.

"I mean, I'm no writer, and I don't profess to have that talent, but I really feel so much of what was about that show was between mother and son and that struggle of how to really be a good parent," Dickens told MovieWeb. "And there was a lot of back and forth with those characters. So, for the audience to not get to see Madison grieve that death, it hurts to not have that moment."

Madison went down in flames in 408, set some time before a vengeful Nick was shot and killed by Vulture mole Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) in 403. That left Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), the last-surviving member of the Clark family, to grieve her mother and her brother, whose deaths were ultimately caused by the arrival of the freeloading scavengers once led by Melvin (Kevin Zegers).

"Things change, and that's the nature of this show," Dickens said. "The characters don't always make it."

Though Dickens is open to returning — by way of flashback, dream sequence, or hallucination, all tools used to briefly "resurrect" long-dead Walking Dead characters — the star admitted she doesn't expect Fear to ever revisit Madison. Also unlikely to return is Dillane, who asked to be killed off when the spinoff was entering its fourth season.

"I had been doing it for three or four years, the show has undergone many changes in terms of different people in charge, all of this stuff, and I just felt like the beginning of this season kind of felt like the end of an era with this show," Dillane told EW after his death episode last April. The foreign star also said he was "homesick" and wanted to return to Europe.

"I also felt like we had achieved what needed to be achieved in the first few seasons, so I thought it was time to keep moving," he added. "I had been playing Nick for four years and I was ready to play some different characters."

Fear the Walking Dead, now led by former Walking Dead star Lennie James, returns to AMC with its Season Five premiere Sunday, June 2.

-----

Have you subscribed to ComicBook Nation, the official Podcast of ComicBook.com yet? Check it out by clicking here or listen below.

In this latest episode, we talk about Avengers: Endgame run time, Zack Snyder divulging a bunch of plans he had for the DCEU and more! Make sure to subscribe now and never miss an episode!

2comments