Does Dakota Die in Fear the Walking Dead's Season Finale?

Showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg break down the explosive ending between Teddy (John [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

Showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg break down the explosive ending between Teddy (John Glover) and Dakota (Zoe Colletti) in the Season 6 finale of Fear the Walking Dead. The cult leader spent the half-season sermonizing about ending everything with the nuclear warhead he finally fired off in the penultimate episode of Season 6, but the wayward Dakota has looked to Teddy as a beginning since their first meeting in "Mother." Nicknamed "Sioux" by the serial killer, Dakota believes Teddy will deliver the fresh start she failed to find with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) or Virginia (Colby Minifie), the mother who masqueraded as Dakota's sister until just before her death.

Aboard the beached submarine where he launched the warhead, Teddy tells Dakota that Morgan and her mother wanted her to "be somebody she's not." Given the pick between being a whole different person with Morgan, or staying the way she is and dying with Teddy, Dakota makes her choice: "I want to be who I am."

In "The Beginning," Teddy and Dakota are en route to their front-row seats for the big show when she apologizes for saving Morgan after he was shot and left for dead by Virginia at Humbug's Gulch. If Morgan died then, there would be no one to stop the missiles Teddy's trying to launch.

"I'm glad things went the way they did," Teddy tells her. "Otherwise, I might never have met you."

"I think hearing that means everything to Dakota because she feels the same way about Teddy," Goldberg says on Fear the Walking Dead: Episode Insider. "She feels that no one understands her the way that she does, and that's why she's willing to die for him."

But Teddy's not willing to die just yet. When it's revealed June Dorie (Jenna Elfman) and John Dorie Sr. (Keith Carradine) followed them to forgive Dakota for gunning down John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt) in cold blood, Dorie Sr. uncovers an underground shelter where Teddy is "planning on sticking around for the beginning."

Teddy explains: "We didn't shoot off all those missiles. So when the dust clears, we're going to go back and finish what we started." Dakota demands to know why Teddy didn't tell her about the bunker. Did he mean it when he said he understands her?

Dorie Sr. says she's here because Teddy needs two people to launch the missiles: one person can't turn both keys. "He doesn't care about you," the old cop tells Dakota. "He just needs you so you can finish what he wants. He'll kill you when it's over. That's what he does — he discards people when he's done with 'em."

"Whether or not Teddy's actually telling her the truth or whether he's manipulating her, in many ways Teddy may be a bit of a hypocrite," Chambliss explains on Episode Insider. "He has said that he is going to die with everyone else and the Earth needs to be wiped clean, but then we discover he actually has a bunker. He may be in fact lying to Dakota in that moment because he may not even believe everything he's saying."

Teddy gives her another choice: "You can either die bringing about the end with me by your side, and you just being who you are, or you can go on with them and pretend to be somebody you're not. It's your choice."

The Dories try to give Dakota her second chance in the bunker. "I shouldn't have to change for anyone," she decides. "I'm staying up here. I have to see the end."

The end comes for Teddy when Dakota shoots him in the chest and head. "You said that I should never change, and I'm not," she says. "Now you never get to see your ending."

Fear the Walking Dead Dakota death
("The Beginning" is the end for Dakota. Photo: AMC Studios)

She has a front-row seat to the ending: the explosive charge of the warhead disintegrates Dakota in the blinding blink of an eye, and her ashen remains are destroyed by the blast wave.

"For someone who has spent this entire season looking for a fresh start, it's really sad to think that the only escape that she sees from that, and the only real connection she makes, is with someone who tells her that she has to die," Goldberg says of Dakota.

Season 7 of Fear the Walking Dead premieres Fall 2021 on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things The Walking Dead Universe.

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