‘Fear The Walking Dead’: Dave Erickson Explains Open-Ended Season 3 Finale

Madison survived the Season 3 finale of AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead.” But the fate of the other main characters, including her children Nick and Alicia were left unclear. In a number of interviews following the airing of the explosive season-ender, exiting showrunner Dave Erickson explained why the show’s last episode under his guidance concluded with an ambiguous note.

Erickson told Entertainment Weekly said that the vague ending of the season was intentional as he wanted to give new showrunners Andrew Chambliss, Ian Goldberg and Scott Gimple liberty on how they would like to continue the series.

“The intention was always to destroy the thing that held back the resource and the thing that justified the violence, which was the water, so the dam was always going to go,” Erickson said. “[But] I think that there was a version of this where if I was going to stay on it might have been a little bit more clearly defined in terms of who survived exactly, and who was going to be ready to rally and go to war with Proctor John (Ray McKinnon) in Season 4. But being not entirely certain what the intentions were going to be from Scott’s camp, we chose to leave it a little more open-ended, so at the end obviously the only person we see make it to shore is Madison (Kim Dickens). And we can find out, as I’m sure we will, in Season 4 who else made it out of the water.”

In an interview with Deadline, Erickson said that if he were to continue running the show next season, he could say that Nick (Frank Dillane), Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Strand (Colman Domingo) and Daniel (Rubén Blades) are not dead. But because he’s already left the series, the fate of the characters are solely in the hands of the new showrunners.

“The suggestion that Alicia’s dead, and that we actually see her grave in the flash forward fantasy sequence, that’s really all from Madison’s POV, and sort of her worst-case scenario,” Erickson explained. “[But] I’d say just because we don’t see Alicia or Strand, don’t assume that they didn’t get to shore in the same way that Madison did.”

As for Nick and Daniel, Erickson said that he thinks the two are “a little bit safer,” noting that they really wanted to show Daniel dragging Nick to safety in the final moments of the episode.

Although Erickson has no idea about where the series is heading next, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he’s confident that the new showrunners will continue Madison, Nick and Alicia’s storylines. “[If I were to stay on the series] there was definitely more story I had for Nick and Madison and Alicia. I would want to keep that core Clark family going for a while long,” Erickson said. “[But] I’m sure the [new] guys will.”

“Fear the Walking Dead” Season 4 is expected to premiere sometime next year.