Some Fear The Walking Dead fans are threatening to exit the series alongside freshly killed-off lead Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), who met her controversial end in the season 4 mid-season finale.
Following Dickens' exit, former The Walking Dead star Lennie James looks to receive top billing moving forward, setting Morgan Jones as Fear's new lead — a move that comes after some viewers have already complained of doing away with a middle-aged female lead, a rarity for genre television.
"I have loved this character, I've loved playing this character, I've loved this show, and I'm so proud to have been a strong female empowered lead of a genre show," Dickens said of Madison on live Walking Dead-centric after show Talking Dead.
"They're usually led by male leads, and it was just such an honor to have this special experience of being that lead female calling the shots. And also, I'm not in my 20s or not in my 30s, mind you. She was a mother too — a mother who was ferocious, and I just thought it was just such an honor to get to play her."
Dickens, adding she thought there were "so many more stories to tell and so many more places to go" with Madison, admitted she was initially "shocked and disappointed and heartbroken" when she was told by new showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg Madison would be dead halfway through season 4.
The 52-year-old actress echoed those comments in a talk with The Hollywood Reporter, saying it "has been such an honor to play this fierce and empowered woman who is mature and a mother, and is maybe not your typical idea of a lead for the genre."
The move to axe Madison has brought scathing criticisms from THR and Inquisitor, both of whom opine about the effects of ageism on Hollywood productions and the role it may have played in Dickens' abrupt removal from the series after just three-and-a-half seasons.
In broader terms, the Walking Dead is facing a lead problem: Fear loses its lead just months before the flagship series is set to lose longtime leading man Andrew Lincoln, whose looming exit has also come under fire by fans who have threatened to stop watching once Lincoln's Rick Grimes is no longer with the show.
Those results were backed up by a recent online poll where more than 44% of respondents claimed they would be exiting the series alongside Lincoln, and Fear could suffer a similar fate following the loss of both Dickens and Madison: some viewers are now citing the loss as cause for dropping the series.