Fear the Walking Dead Showrunners Explain Why John Left June in Episode 606

The Fear the Walking Dead showrunners explain why newlyweds June (Jenna Elfman) and John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt), who only recently reunited after they were torn apart by Virginia (Colby Minifie), went in opposite directions to end Sunday’s “Bury Her Next to Jasper’s Leg.” June and John plotted to run away together — they would escape to the remote cabin where they first met in season 4 — but June changed course when Virginia agreed to construct a hospital for the hundreds of settlement survivors who would now be in the care of herself, Luciana (Danay Garcia), Sarah (Mo Collins), and Wendell (Daryl Mitchell).

John said he would follow behind June as she left Tank Town in the semi-truck-slash-mobile medical room steered by Sarah, but he took a fork in the road and kept driving in a decision that left viewers heartbroken.

“I think we have a pretty good idea of where he’s going. He brought it up earlier to June. He mentioned that cabin that June and Dorie actually met at, and it’s the place that we know from his history that he retreated to the last time he felt like the world was making him into someone he didn’t want to be,” Andrew Chambliss told EW. “So that, in fact, is where he’s headed when he leaves. And it’s Dorie kind of falling back into his old patterns when the world kind of throws up challenges that force him to act in a way that makes him uncomfortable, that makes him choose to see the world in a way that isn’t the way he wants to see it. He’d rather run away.”

A former police officer, Dorie first retreated to his cabin after accidentally killing a crook during a gas station robbery. People lauded the guilt-ridden Dorie as a hero, and he was left feeling rotten after Virginia hoisted him up as a tried-and-true lawman when she falsely claimed he solved a murder inside the Lawton settlement.

“I think the really sad thing is he and June have brought so much good out of each other, way back in season 4. Finding each other is the thing that allowed them each to start to heal. It’s the thing that allowed them to reconnect to the world,” Chambliss said. “And now in this moment, when really they need each other more than anything, they’re both headed in opposite directions. And it’s really going to raise the question of how they come back together and how their very different reactions to dealing with Ginny can be compatible going forward.”

John was unable to bring himself to fully disclose what happened to their friend, Janis (Holly Curran), who was executed by walker for a crime she didn’t commit. When June tried to get it out of John, he said he had to “get as far away from this place as possible.” And if he doesn’t, “I’m not gonna last long.”

“On top of knowing that something happened between John and Virginia and her not knowing the exact details of it, but just seeing how destroyed and unlike himself that he is, it leads June to this place where she just sees that there’s only so much she can do while she’s under Virginia’s rule,” added Ian Goldberg. “And there’s only so much she can [do to] help people.”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. Fear the Walking Dead season 6 airs its midseason finale, “Damage From the Inside,” on Sunday, November 22.