‘Fear The Walking Dead’ EP Says Al’s Past Will Soon Be Revealed

“Fear the Walking Dead” fans will soon get answers about Al’s mysterious past.

In a recent interview with TVLine, co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss said that viewers are finally going to learn something about Al’s backstory in an upcoming Season 4 episode of the AMC series.

“Al is good at asking people questions,” Chambliss said, “but not so good at answering them.” The exec producer then promised that answers about who Al really is are forthcoming, particularly about her mysterious tape labeled as “The Bog.” “As we’ve seen [in Season 4, episode 3], it’s important to Al,” Chambliss said of the tape. “It will just take a little bit of work for people to find out exactly what that’s about and really what everything she’s got in her van is about.”

Althea (Maggie Grace) or “Al” made quite an entrance in the Season 4 premiere of the zombie drama when she coolly showed up driving a huge S.W.A.T. vehicle. While a lot of fans are interested in knowing how Al got her mobile, it is actually her pursuit of recording stories from all across the apocalypse that makes her an intriguing character.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Grace explained why she thinks Al is documenting the story of every fellow survivor she comes across with. “There are quite a few layers there,” Grace said. “On one hand, there’s the personal. You know, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. And I do think this agenda is saving her life.”

“In a deeper way, I think this season is very much about trying to find human connection when there’s few humans left,” Grace continued. “I think she’s really looking for that very human quality that’s still left in people. Is there still anything noble, or worth saving, about humanity that separates us from the walkers? It’s reduced a lot of people to nasty, brutish, and a short life. But then there are also incredible acts of kindness and compassion and self-sacrifice, and really incredibly diverse groups working together in ways they might not have before the apocalypse.”

Grace also thinks that there’s a practical purpose to what Al is doing. “There are small societies being built from the ground up, and this is the closest thing that they have to news,” Grace said of why her character’s mission also has significance to others. “I think also, in a way, it’s history rebooting. What are we leaving for those that come after us?”

While Grace and Chambliss were both tight-lipped on whether Al’s recordings are building toward a larger arc on the show, the character’s official description from AMC states that Al’s curiosity about people is “part of a greater mission, one that will become more critical and complicated as her journey progresses.”

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