PADRE Revealed on Fear the Walking Dead

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Gone” episode of Fear TWD. Season 7 of Fear the Walking Dead ended with the mother of all shockers: Madison Clark is alive, and she’s working for P.A.D.R.E. Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Morgan Jones (Lennie James) spent the season searching for the safe-zone no one was sure existed except for Will (Gus Halper), the senator’s aide protecting classified government documents titled “P.A.D.R.E.: Rebuilding Our Country’s Future.” Not only did Sunday’s “Gone” season finale confirm P.A.D.R.E. exists, it revealed they rescued Madison (Kim Dickens) after she seemingly sacrificed herself so her children could escape a walker horde in Season 4. 

P.A.D.R.E. offered to help Madison find Nick and Alicia if she worked for them as a Collector and “rescue” children, called “eggs,” stealing them from their parents to take to P.A.D.R.E. At a dock on the Louisana coast called “the birdhouse,” Collectors contact “Oriole” to drop eggs for processing aboard a ship that travels to P.A.D.R.E.’s classified location.

P.A.D.R.E. is “the kind of place a kid would dream about growing up” and “the best shot our kids have for a future,” Madison tells Morgan of the children they “rescue.” They take kids from their families because at P.A.D.R.E., Madison explains, there are “no attachments, no connections.” 

Because P.A.D.R.E. is powerful and resourceful, Madison feared what might happen if she stopped collecting children: “They’d find Nick and Alicia and make them do what I wouldn’t anymore.” After “rescuing” Baby Mo (Avaya White) from her father, Madison reveals the only way to get Morgan’s daughter back is to trade another child to P.A.D.R.E. 

On AMC+’s Fear TWD: Episode Insider, co-showrunner Ian Goldberg confirmed P.A.D.R.E. is not the ship that Morgan and Madison sail towards at the end of “Gone.” 

“We will most definitely get to see P.A.D.R.E. in Season 8. It’s something that we have been teasing since the beginning of Season 7, and there are many more surprises to come with what that place is like and the people who live there,” Goldberg teased. “You’re just gonna have to watch and see, but it’s not gonna look like anything you’ve seen.” 

Season 8 of Fear will begin filming this month after moving production from Texas to Savannah, Georgia, but it’s unclear where the new season will take place (The Walking Dead is set in Virginia but filmed in Georgia). Co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss previously told Decider, “The end of Season 7 was written with the move in mind. So the narrative is geared towards the change of location as well.” 

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