Fear the Walking Dead Showrunner on Victor Strand's "Drastic Reinvention" in Season 8
Victor Strand is dead. That's not to say we've seen the last of Colman Domingo's cunning conman-turned-ultimate zombie apocalypse survivor on Fear the Walking Dead — but the villainous Victor who waged war on his former friends Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Morgan Jones (Lennie James) in season 7 is no more. The last we saw him, Alicia rescued Strand from his destroyed dictator tower, giving him a second chance as the group escaped irradiated Texas by life raft to join Morgan — and unbeknownst to them, Victor's old BFF and Alicia's still-alive mother Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) — on the island of P.A.D.R.E.
When Fear picks back up for its eighth and final season, seven years will have passed since Morgan and Madison set sail for P.A.D.R.E. — and a lot has changed since we last saw the survivors. In season 8, Strand "may have the most drastic reinvention of any character on the show when we meet him," co-showrunner Ian Goldberg revealed during the show's WonderCon panel, adding to "expect a big change from what we've seen before."
What we've seen before was a Strand that sacrificed Sanjay (Satya Nikhil Polisetti), tried to sacrifice Morgan aboard a nuclear submarine, and who sacrificed his relationship with Alicia when he forced her friend Will (Gus Halper) off the roof of his tower. "Strand went down a very dark path in season 7 with who he became in that tower, and he's dug a deep hole for himself," Goldberg said. In this final season, the question is "whether he can redeem himself for everything that he did."
Strand will return with a new look to match his drastically changed demeanor, but what that looks like remains to be seen. Domingo's presence this season is being kept under wraps: the character was notably absent from Fear's full-length trailer revealed during WonderCon.
AMC describes season 8: "The eighth season begins after the conclusion of Season 7, when Morgan's and Madison's hopes to rescue Mo from P.A.D.R.E. did not go as planned. Now, Morgan, Madison and the others they brought to the island are living under P.A.D.R.E.'s cynical rule. With our characters demoralized and dejected, the task of reigniting belief in a better world rests with the person Morgan and Madison set out to rescue in the first place — Morgan's daughter, Mo." Lennie James, Kim Dickens, Colman Domingo, Danay Garcia, Austin Amelio, Christine Evangelista, Karen David, Jenna Elfman and Rubén Blades star.
The first part of Fear the Walking Dead's two-part final season premieres Sunday, May 14th, on AMC and AMC+.
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