‘Fear The Walking Dead’ EP Explains Why [SPOILER] Had To Die

The second half of the double-episode Season 3 premiere of “Fear the Walking Dead” saw the surprising death of Travis (Cliff Curtis). While a lot of fans feel that there’s more story to tell about Madison’s (Kim Dickens) lover, showrunner Dave Erickson said that the character’s story had already reached its end.

“Following Chris’ (Lorenzo James Henrie) death, I think [his father’s] death was inevitable,” Erickson told TVLine. “Travis’ whole trajectory at that point was to do for his surrogate son what he’d failed to do for his biological one. Coming off of Chris’ death, Travis had failed. He’d broken his promise to Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) — he hadn’t protected their boy. So for him, it becomes very much a question of atonement and redemption. And the only way to do that is to return Nick (Frank Dillane) to Madison, which he does.”

Erickson told The Hollywood Reporter that Travis’ story “was essentially over” after he saved Nick from the militiamen in the first-half of the season premiere. “He [already] did what he needed to do,” said Erickson. “I think Cliff played it beautifully in the end of the premiere. He’s accomplished something. He returned Nick to his mother. But pointedly, he’s not part of that family embrace at the end of the act. There’s a certain remove and a certain resignation, even in his own mind. It didn’t fix anything for him. It may have brought Madison back with her son, but it didn’t repair anything in Travis. I think he knows that. There’s a certain fateful quality coming off of that.”

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At the end of Season 3, episode 1, Travis escaped the zombie-infested military camp via helicopter. But at the beginning of episode 2, Travis was shot in the neck after the helicopter received gunfire from an unknown party. Realizing that the situation was dire, he opened up the helicopter door and jumped off from it to avoid endangering his traveling companions by turning into one of the infected in mid-air.

Erickson revealed that there were versions of the story that extended deeper into the season. “But ultimately, we pulled it back and did it in episode 2, really because of what it did for the rest of the characters going forward,” the exec producer said.

When asked how Curtis reacted when he learned that Travis was going to die in the second hour of the season, Erickson told Entertainment Weekly: “We let Cliff know before we came back. It was hard. I hate making those calls and having those conversations, and Cliff, because he’s Cliff, was incredible. He’s insanely generous as an actor but also as a person, and he’s just very big-hearted and very kind, and he understood that it’s ultimately about the larger structure of the show and how does it inform the story. And then he’s doing a little movie for Jim Cameron now so I think he’s doing okay.”

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“Fear the Walking Dead” airs every Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT on AMC.