Fear the Walking Dead’s Alycia Debnam-Carey on Alicia Clark’s New Beginning and the End of “Mother” (Exclusive)

Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) hunkers down for her “new beginning” on Fear the Walking Dead, where the last surviving Clark is key to the mother of all plots to end everything. Spoiler warning for Season 6 Episode 14. In “Mother,” Alicia is the prized prisoner of murderer mortician and doomsayer Teddy (John Glover), whose underground cult of “the end is the beginning” believers hold the keys that unlock the future: one where life begins again after a submarine-launched nuclear missile destroys it all. When it’s over, she’ll be left alive inside the fallout shelter where Teddy says Alicia will “rebuild the world” of The Walking Dead.

Below, Debnam-Carey speaks to ComicBook.com about Alicia’s evolution into a “fearless” leader who is taking after her mother Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), Alicia’s next chapter after letting go of the past, and the fallout from “Mother” over the final two episodes of Season 6 that are “unlike anything” we’ve seen before on Fear:

Alicia’s Next Chapter

ComicBook.com: You like to journal and write. If Alicia were keeping a journal, what do you think she would write about what happens to her in “Mother”?

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Oh, good question. Right out the gate we’re on it (laughs). I mean, I don’t think Alicia is like me in terms of writing a journal. I think she’s too emotionally arrested to kind of let go. But in that way, I think writing a journal is quite a vulnerable position to put yourself in. I think she hasn’t processed a lot of stuff. Really, I think this episode is showing an evolution of Alicia. It shows this merging between who she was in her past, we see that being resurrected with Cole and what that means in terms of her relationship to the stadium and Madison, of course, but then also who she is becoming moving forward, being put in this extremely high stakes position with a madman such as Teddy, and what kind of person she needs to be moving forward and what parts of her character maybe needs to change or be shedded.

And so I think if she was writing a journal, we’d probably be wrestling with some of those thoughts and wrestling with maybe taking on some of Madison’s qualities to move through this next chapter.

The End is the Beginning

CB: Speaking of that madman, Alicia sacrifices herself for her friends in 611 [The Holding], and in 614 [Mother], she stays behind to find out what Teddy’s planning. Why do you think Alicia is so fearless in the face of “the end”?

ADC: I think Alicia is extremely … She has a lot of compassion and love, and deep down I think she really, truly does believe and want things to be better. And I think those are some of the qualities that have actually kept her alive for so long because she is able to be extremely ruthless and can, obviously, defend herself really well. She’s such a badass. But she also maintains this need to protect, and I think that fearlessness shines through. I think it’s one of her biggest strengths, is that she is a fierce protector.

And I think she’s also suffered so much grief and so much loss that the end doesn’t necessarily scare her in the same way that I think it probably used to. I think she’s sort of got this interesting mix that makes her a reluctant leader, so she sort of will do what needs to be done.

No One’s Gone Until They’re Gone

CB: She suffered all that loss, but then she sees Cole and then Doug and Viv, people she’s spent all this time thinking are dead. Is there any part of Alicia that’s thinking that maybe Madison made it out of the stadium, too?

ADC: I mean, I think really it’s just obviously something that’s probably always going to be this sort of maybe niggling thought at the back of her brain. But at the same time, I think it helps her to believe that she’s gone and to know that she’s gone because, otherwise, I just don’t think she can move forward. And I think her accepting this loss allows her to just keep moving and be fearless in this life.

Alicia’s Evolution

CB: You’ve called Alicia in the bunker pantry in season three [This Land Is Your Land] one of the big “evolutionary points” for Alicia, who comes out of the bunker a changed person. And then in season six, she goes into another bunker. How does Alicia evolve after “Mother”?

ADC: I think what we see in this moment when she shoots Cole, I think there’s this reckoning of clarity that comes to her and that clarity being where she draws the line. And I think she’s now got this ethos that is, “I am going to give you a chance, but if you’ve betrayed that chance or wasted that opportunity, then I know where to put you,” and sometimes that will showcase itself in violence and sometimes that is just a means to move forward in a different direction. But I think in this case, we see it as come to a violent end.

It’s this new evolution of Alicia that is of becoming quite pragmatic and ruthless in the way that I think, actually, Madison was. I think we have this idea of Madison that could be quite optimistic and would do anything to protect her family, but she was also incredibly pragmatic and ruthless and would do things at a heavy cost.

And so I think Alicia’s gotten that kind of clarity of how to balance her own hope and optimism, but also with a very, very logical ruthlessness in a way. We see it then, as soon as that happens, she turns on Teddy and then is very quick to turn on Dakota as well and say, “Well, I gave you a chance too, but you denied that, and so I know exactly where to put you in my head.” 

Hope

CB: Speaking of This Land Is Your Land, because this episode in a lot of ways feels like a spiritual sequel, Teddy telling Alicia she won’t lose sight of hope almost feels kind of like a perversion of what Christine says to Alicia, “Even when you’re hopeless, hope is all you have.” What is Alicia thinking when Teddy talks to her about hope?

ADC: Alicia is a fierce protector, and I think she has that compassion and hope, and it almost is her greatest strength, but I think she doesn’t even acknowledge it or understand it as much as her greatest strength. Yeah, it’s a complicated sort of mentality to unwind and untangle. I mean, she hates being told by Teddy kind of anything, but I think it also does speak to her in terms of there is a deep truth to the fact that she has all this power because she still has a lot of hope. I don’t think it’s a quality that she can just lose. It’s part of her being.

Alycia’s Evolution

CB: You’ve said you’re looking in the next few years to start directing. Colman [Domingo] and Lennie [James] have directed Fear. Is directing an episode of the show something you’ve ever thought about? 

ADC: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I would love to do that, so we’ll see how it all pans out.

The Season 6 Finale

CB: Could you give us a tease about the remaining two episodes of the season? And are you able to tell us if we’ll see Alicia again before season seven?

ADC: I will say that the remaining two episodes are huge in scale. They’re quite unlike anything we’ve done before. And they’re just massive, and they’re incredibly emotional and powerful. And I think the fans are really, really going to like them. They’re just so much bigger than I think what we’ve seen before, and that’s going to be really, really exciting. So they’re going to like them a lot.

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.