Alycia Debnam-Carey Leaves Fear the Walking Dead

By Cameron Bonomolo

Sunday's "Amina" episode of Fear the Walking Dead is a milestone: the series' 100th episode is the final appearance of Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey). After surviving seven seasons and one zombie bite, outlasting brother Nick (Frank Dillane) and mother Madison (Kim Dickens), Alicia's fate was revealed in the penultimate episode of Fear's Season 7. Still battling the after-effects of infection, a feverish Alicia braved radioactive fallout to save old friend Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) before evacuating Morgan's (Lennie James) group of survivors by raft. "Amina" ended with Alicia staying behind in the fallout zone, spending whatever time she has left finding and saving survivors searching for the mythical PADRE.

On AMC+'s Fear the Walking Dead: Episode Insider, co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss confirmed "Amina" marks the final episode for Debnam-Carey and Alicia, the only original character from the 2015 pilot episode to appear as a series regular in all seven seasons of the Walking Dead spinoff. 

"It was very difficult to write Alicia's last episode and to say goodbye to her, both as a character and then also say goodbye to Alycia Debnam-Carey as an actor," Chambliss said. "She's been such an integral part of the show from the very beginning, but it's something that we've been working towards for a while and something we've been working towards very closely with Alycia." 

In "Amina," named after the bird that a young Alicia and Nick nursed back to health as children, the feverish Alicia follows the masked girl from her dreams: a young Alicia (Anniston Almond), a manifestation of her subconscious. In the end, she saves Strand so he could live to do what she couldn't — lead their people somewhere safe — and because she loves him like family. 

"Alicia's journey was all about this moment where she can essentially save kind of this core part of herself, and that's this belief that there can be good in people," Chambliss explained. "And in many ways, it's kind of an extension of what her mother believed, that no one's gone until they're gone. And that is what we started with, and that is, ultimately, how we got to the story that you see when you watch the episode."

After shoving off the rafts containing Strand, Luciana (Danay Garcia), Daniel Salazar (Ruben Blades), and the rest of her friends, Alicia collapses, seemingly succumbing to the fever. She awakes to find her fever broken and the bird flying overhead.

"I think it's open to interpretation whether or not that bird is really there, whether or not she really freed a bird from the Tower, or whether that was all part of her subconscious," Chambliss said. "And if it was, maybe this is just her subconscious trying to guide her once again. And we really wanted to build this kind of reawakening of Alicia, where she has been through this incredible journey and is now standing up and is going to be walking into kind of a new world with a newfound strength."

Alicia shooting and killing a walker with her final bullet before turning back into the fallout "is a sign that Alicia believes she has beaten this thing, that Alicia thinks she's going to live," Chambliss continued. "And then we see her walk off as a triumphant hero." 

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