Fear the Walking Dead: Michael Satrazemis Preview Big and Different Season 6

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 begins airing on Sunday night, kicking off a new style of storytelling for AMC's zombie series. The show which is currently set in Texas, saw its main group being taken away by Ginny at the end of its fifth season, being split up and sent to her camps. With the new episodes, the split of the group is going to be used as a storytelling tool which will prompt each episode to focus on one character or a small faction of them, rather than having actors and character compete for their share of screen time each week. Executive producer Michael E. Satrazemis opened up about the upcoming season and the new storytelling style while talking to ComicBook.com on the show's set.

"This was kind of a heavy load, but it's good cause then I get some of the smaller, the more intimate episodes which kind of really like, which is what this season's kind of turning out to be; very big, small episodes," Satrazemis said. The executive producer is no stranger to Dead universe, having directed a handful of key episodes of The Walking Dead and now directing Fear's Season 6 premiere.

"I think, leaving off from last season, we all know what's happened," he says. "Everyone's going to get split up and kind of sent into indentured servitude. And I think what that really did was lend for, a different story structure where we'll tell, and I think Ian and Andrew really kind of came out with a great story device, but we take a much deeper dive with all the characters getting a little more kind of cinematic through there. The episode is kind of its own little film beginning of the end, which was really nice as a storyteller to be able to do that and then not have to kind of do the connective tissue with every single actor getting two lines and tracking the stories. You can really go down a rabbit hole story-wise with what an actor or a couple of actors."

This all falls in line with what Alicia Clark actress Alycia Debnam-Carey said about the upcoming season, as well.

Satrazemis says he "can't dig deep," on what's going on with all of the characters as a means to preserve spoilers. "I think that story structure is the thing that excites me the most this year about having this kind of anthology about these deep dives with these characters, everyone is going to process this split very differently," he exlpains. "I mean, just because June and Dorie just got married... So obviously, they're going to deal with their split different than Alicia and Strand, who have all the connective tissue through the four or five other seasons."

There is also a bit of a connective tissue to the other shows in this zombie franchise. The Walking Dead is rolling into its eleventh season, having already lent Morgan Jones and Dwight to the spinoff series, and The Walking Dead: World Beyond is taking place in a different place at a different time, but airing episodes right after Fear.

"We have to keep track of each other," Satrazemis explained. "Now I know because a lot of things, crossover, a lot of story elements crossover, a lot of things. It's expanding. I mean, it's odd this deep into something that we never... We were told,at the very beginning of the first season that it wouldn't do well and, 'Don't even get your hopes up.' I remember that vividly, we were all kind of looking around realizing that we all had the right people and the right time and we were like, listen, let's go for it. But 10 years into have it making this big expansion, that wasn't anything anyone ever expected. Personally, I think it's amazing because I don't know of anything, I mean, the NCISs and things like that, procedurals, we get it because you can plug one into a city and keep it going for the apocalypse, I didn't think it would have such an expansion."

He does, however, note that Ginny's camp is independent from the CRM and other major communities which are popping up elsewhere in the franchise.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond airs Sundays at 10pm ET, following new episodes of Fear the Walking Dead at 9pm ET. The Walking Dead will return for 6 more episodes in Season 10 in the spring. The 11th and final season of The Walking Dead will begin airing in the Fall of 2021.