Fear the Walking Dead: AMC Asks if Fans Are Watching for Madison Clark’s Return

An AMC Networks survey directed at viewers of Fear the Walking Dead asks whether fans are tuning in to see the return of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), who appeared to die in The Walking Dead spinoff’s fourth season. Madison is last shown alive in “No One’s Gone,” where she sacrifices herself saving her children, Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and friends Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and Luciana (Danay Garcia). When oil-covered zombies flood the group’s baseball stadium community, Madison stays behind and immolates the horde before dying off-screen in the ensuing white-hot blaze.

Now an AMC survey is stirring speculation that the network is gauging interest about bringing back Madison. Her off-screen exit, and lack of an explicit death, inspired the ongoing “#BringBackMadison” campaign urging AMC to reverse the character’s departure that installed Morgan Jones (Lennie James) as the new series lead.

The survey from AMC Popular Culturists, where viewers can participate in questionnaires and provide feedback on AMC Networks and its programming, asks the question: “Why did you watch Episode 1 from Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead?”

Responses include “I wanted to see what happened since the Season 5 finale,” “I want to see if there are more connections to The Walking Dead,” and “I want to see if Madison returns.” An image of the survey, with its more than two dozen responses, was published to Reddit courtesy of user u/stephen6686:

Madison’s return has been a hot topic since her death episode aired in 2018, and some questioned if advertising for Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 was suggesting Madison would return and “rise from the ashes.” Similar speculation occurred as a result of imagery that appeared in Fear‘s fifth season, where characters came across a tree painted with a ladder sprouting out of flames.

Dickens, who was surprised by the showrunners’ decision to kill Madison, later contested Madison’s death when she told Access that her character “would have scurried up that wall like nobody’s business. She had kids on the other side of that wall, she’s gonna go get them.”

Asked about a Fear comeback, Dickens said, “I think fans are still upset about it at times. I don’t know. That’s the nature of the genre, though. You can be gone like that. And you can also pop up at some time, at any time.”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things The Walking Dead Universe. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead premiere Sundays at 9 pm ET/8c on AMC.