Fear the Walking Dead Showrunners Won’t Confirm Madison Clark Is Dead

The Fear the Walking Dead showrunners won't confirm whether Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) is dead as [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

The Fear the Walking Dead showrunners won't confirm whether Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) is dead as the midseason finale sparks speculation that she could return in season 6B. In the season 4 midseason finale, "No One's Gone," Madison appears to die when she immolates a horde of walkers that invade the Dell Diamond Baseball Stadium community home to her children Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Nick (Frank Dillane). Madison's sacrificial act, also saving the lives of Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) and Luciana (Danay Garcia), ends with her disappearing in a white-hot blaze after she radios the Clark children to tell them "no one's gone until they're gone."

Asked by Insider about chances audiences will see Madison again, either in flashback or present-day, showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg took a beat before Chambliss said it's "definitely something we talk about."

When Insider's Kirsten Acuna asked point-blank if Madison is dead, Goldberg answered, "Well… we never saw her body. And Madison herself said, 'No one's gone until they're gone.'" You can watch Chambliss and Goldberg's responses in the video above.

The Fear writer-producers, who have served as showrunners since season 4 in 2018, were similarly cryptic when asked by Comic Book if Madison might have saved Morgan (Lennie James). The new group leader was on death's door when Virginia (Colby Minifie) shot him and left him to be torn apart by walkers in the season 5 finale, but a mystery person saved him at the last possible moment.

As Morgan explained to Isaac (Michael Abbott Jr.) in the season 6 premiere, this person shot the walkers, patched him up, and left behind a blood-stained note before disappearing. The season has already eliminated Fear newcomers Sherry (Christine Evangelista) and Dakota (Zoe Colletti), Virginia's younger sister, as the mystery rescuer.

"There's always a chance [Madison returns]," Goldberg told ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis. "There's always a chance. We can't say much else about who saved Morgan, other than we saw the note. We saw that it was someone with an ulterior motive who said that Morgan still had things to do. It's someone that Morgan doesn't know. We know that from the note, also."

Goldberg added. "I think when we do reveal who that person is who saved him, that note is going to take on a whole new level of resonance in terms of what it means."

Morgan didn't meet Madison, but if she survived the fall of the stadium, she might have seen the many interviews recorded by Althea (Maggie Grace) and left for other survivors to find across Texas. "No One's Gone" revealed Madison also taped one of these interviews with Al, who inspired her to found the Dell Diamond community.

It was not Dickens' decision to leave Fear. Following her exit episode in 2018, Dickens admitted on Talking Dead that she felt "heartbroken" and "devastated" when the showrunners informed her that Madison would be killed off midway through the fourth season. Dickens confessed in a March 2019 interview that she "can't imagine they would want to revisit Madison," but said she "would never say no" to a return without discussing it first.

But in March of this year, after Fear was months into filming on its sixth season, Dickens did not rule out a return when asked about her character's death that sparked outrage from fans.

"I think fans are still upset about it at times. I don't know," Dickens told Access. "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."

Asked how Madison might have survived, Dickens said, "She 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."

A return seemed to be teased in season 5, which involved imagery depicting a ladder rising from flames; early marketing for season 6 asked which of its characters will "rise from the ashes." In October, an official AMC survey aimed at Fear viewers asked whether they were tuning into the new season "to see if Madison returns."

Fear the Walking Dead returns with new episodes in 2021 on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.

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