Exclusive: FEAR THE WALKING DEAD Showrunner Dave Erickson Talks Mid-Season 2 Finale, Teases Second Half

The first half of Fear The Walking Dead Season 2 ended on an intriguing and explosive note this week, capping off a stellar seven-episode run and leaving fans with a lot to talk about at the water cooler until the show returns on August 21st. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to speak with showrunner/executive producer/writer Dave Erickson, who discussed the potential future of a character many might have presumed to be dead, what to expect in the back half of Season 2, whether or not there is a connection between this show and The Whisperers from The Walking Dead comic book series, and much more. *Spoiler Warning*

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today and congratulations on an an amazing first half of Season 2. On this show, if you don't see someone die, there is always the possibility that they could still be alive. Even though Daniel (Rubén Blades) was surrounded by flames in the Mid-Season 2 finale, we never did see his body burn. Is there any chance that we could see him in some form moving forward? Would you like to do more with that character?

Dave Erickson: Yes. What's important from a story perspective is that at the end of the episode, the family believes that he's dead. The family believes that he burned in the fire and couldn't escape. That's really important, especially for Ofelia [Mercedes Mason]. It's really important that she thinks her dad is gone. This is a woman who, for the most part, gave up her own life so she could take care of her parents and then came to realize last season that they really didn't need that much care. They were far more capable than they ever led on, and having lost mom and now dad, that's going to put her on a different path in the back half, so that's important. But no, we will not see Daniel Salazar for the rest of this season. My hope is that we'll be able to organically find a way to bring him back in Season 3.

The Mid-Season 2 finale truly separated the core group of survivors. Going into the back half of Season 2, is the direction of the show going to change to follow different storylines for these split-up characters?

Dave Erickson: The short answer is "yes." By the end of the first half, we wanted to see a family fractured. So all of the tensions that have been building up, some of which started last season, have finally reached a boiling point. Nick [Frank Dillane] is very much grappling with his place in the apocalypse and what his purpose is now. Madison's [Kim Dickens] fear is that as he's delved deeper into the apocalypse, and as he's walked with the dead, literally, he's basically found his new drug and that's not entirely untrue. I've talked to Frank Dillane about this earlier in the season. There is a physiological response. He does get a certain rush, a certain adrenaline high off of that interaction, so now he's done what he's done many times in the past: abandoned his family. He's laying that on more of a spiritual quest, "You don't understand this world," and really blaming Madison and his family for what's happened at Abigail's compound and, frankly, they do have a certain degree of culpability in what happened. He's going off in his own direction.

Clearly Travis [Cliff Curtis] has finally gotten to a place where he's seen Chris [Lorenzo James Henrie] reach his breaking point, where he knows, "I have my main priority, my main responsibility." It's what he actually said in the premiere to Madison when we started the season: "I have to protect my son." At this moment, his sense is, "I have not done a great job at doing that so far." His attitude is, "I've got to put all of my energy, all of my power into focusing on Chris and seeing if there's a way that I can repair this damage." So we'll pick up with him on one trajectory, Nick on another, and then the search for Abigail is something that we'll get to when we return as well. We'll see Madison and Alicia [Alycia Debnam-Carey], Ofelia, and Strand [Colman Domingo] head off on their journey. Then, for Ofelia, she lost her mother last season, she's now lost her dad, it's going to turn her story in an interesting way as well. Everybody's got something driving off of the finale.

Strand and Madison have really grown to trust each other this season. Madison even admitted in the last episode that she is his friend. It seems like those two are really forming a new trust between one another. What can we expect from their relationship moving forward? Is this more than just a "means to an end", as Strand said?

Dave Erickson: Yes, it is. When the relationship started, obviously, it was a matter of convenience and something of an alliance—temporary. It could have been temporary when Madison first learned about Mexico and realized that there was potentially a sanctuary there and that was better for her family and so she had to take the good with the bad as far as Strand goes. By the time they arrive in Episode 6, you've already seen the beginnings of this friendship. Madison didn't have to save him at the end of Episode 4 and chose to. There was a practical reason for that as well because she knew that without Strand, Luis [Arturo del Puerto] was not going to get them into Mexico ultimately, but she did make the effort. There's more to that than simple opportunity. But when we get to Mexico, we realize that Strand's main motivation was not simply this compound and simply this safe haven, it was [Thomas] Abigail [Dougray Scott].

That's impacted Madison. She now realizes that this guy, as cold and determined and steely as he might be, there is something in the world he cares about. The complexion changes a little bit in that relationship. David Wiener wrote the finale and I'm very fond of that scene in particular because there's that strange balance where he clearly wants her to come with him, but he also doesn't want to give her that much, and when he suggests that she come along, he's turned away from her, so there's no "somehow if I shield my eyes, you're not going to see how much I need you." That's what Strand is not good at. Strand is not good at being indebted to people. He's not good at being obligated to people, with the exception of Abigail. You'll see that a friendship will grow and eventually be compromised.

When you compare The Walking Dead's timeline to Fear The Walking Dead's timeline at the end of Season 2's first half, are we still in a time period before Rick Grimes wakes up from his coma?

Dave Erickson: Yes, if you count the days, we're probably going to find an opportunity for a time jump in the back half, but by Episode 207 we're probably edging up to the end of the month mark, and I think Robert [Kirkman] has always said that it's about a month that Rick was in his coma, so we're just getting to the point where Rick wakes up in Georgia and starts his story.

Chris is a very violent, unstable, and unpredictable person right now. Do you think he knows what he's doing or does he really just have no control at this point?

Dave Erickson: He's really confused. He has a great deal of anger. It's interesting, because I don't think he walked into Alicia and Madison's room with the intention of hurting her. I think he was hoping for another opportunity to explain himself. The irony with Chris, despite all that's going on and despite the dangers of the apocalypse, he wants his family. If you go all the way back to the early episodes of Season 1, he's a child of divorce, there's a lot of resentment, a lot of anger. He had to swap schools, he had few friends, if any, he was just a very pissed-off kid, and when you take that kid and you put him in the apocalypse, and then you have his mother killed by his father's hand, there's a sense of imbalance that is difficult to write.

The problem going into this season for him and for Travis was when Travis saw him putting down the infected at Gary's place in Episode 2, Travis knew this was not a good thing. Travis knew that this could be a step down a darker path, but he also was not really in a position to parent, if you will, because he still has to get past the fact that he killed his mother.

He was in a very difficult position and, consequently, Chris was really on his own. He's trying to figure out his place in this world and what he did know is there was definitely a catharsis when it came to killing the dead. That actually game him a little bit of release. Then, in Episode 3, he has to mercy kill this poor guy on the airplane and that messes with his mind that much more, and then finally we build up to Reed [Jesse McCartney]. Reed, for me, always embodied the bully that Chris would have dealt with on a daily basis at school, somebody who knows how to manipulate you and knows how to mess with your head.

The sense for me is that when, in the off-camera moment that he looks over before he shoots Reed, Reed was talking about his mother. Reed was really getting to the finer point of what Chris' upset was and he overreacted. He acted out and shot him. Now, in retrospect, he's been trying to rationalize that and in this new world, somebody like that, with that bad of an injury, is probably going to die and we have to keep safe from that. It's all built to a place where Chris is basically being ostracized by the people who are supposed to love him. A lot of that burden and the murder of Reed, it's on him. It's a mistake that he made, but he also is desperate, especially with Madison, for somebody to understand him and accept him and when he doesn't get that, he really spins out of control.

The big challenge for Travis will be "can he find a way to bring his son back from the brink?" It's really a tough role, and Lorenzo has played it quite beautifully. It's not an easy character this season and he's done great work with it.

On the other end, you have Nick, who, because of his life before the apocalypse, was very well-equipped to deal with everything that's been going on. You mentioned that his increasing fascination with the walkers and interest in understanding them is like his new drug now. Could he be getting too obsessed with the walkers? Is that something you think could be dangerous for him, to be that far on the other end of the spectrum from the rest of his family?

Dave Erickson: Yeah, it absolutely could be, and that's the reason why Madison is so protective and so afraid and ultimately goes to the drastic measures that she goes to. We're going to see a lot of Nick in the back half and his story will continue to grow and evolve and it's interesting to be with him during a period of time when it's not completely dissimilar from what he might have done if he'd run off for a week or two when he was still living at home back in Los Angeles. That's something he's going to have to deal with, this fascination, this new addiction. How can he manage that and not essentially pursue what is to some degree a death wish? That's Madison's concern.

Madison's biggest fear is that he's going down this dark road again and that he's going to end up dead. That point in the finale when she sees her son, she knows that he's walked with the dead. She knows that he's gone to shore without any protection and then when she sees Nick bring Luis back as a gesture to Celia [Marlene Forte] so his family can stay, Madison's horrified and sees the lengths to which he's gone. When she speaks to him later in the episode, it's almost like he feels as though he's been resurrected and that he can't die, which is exactly what he says. By the time we get to that final scene between Celia and Madison, you've got a mother who's just scared shitless, a mother who is really worried that her son is going to end up dead if she doesn't go to the length that she goes to.

In The Walking Dead comic book series right now, one of the biggest threats is a group called The Whisperers. It seems like there are some parallels between what they are doing in the comics and what certain characters in Fear The Walking Dead, such as Nick, seem be focused on—that fascination with the infected. Is this potentially the origin of The Whisperers, or are fans looking into this a little too much?

Dave Erickson: It's something we leaned into with Nick starting in Episode 3 and progressively, in terms of the exact methods by which he walks with the dead, I think we're going to move away from that somewhat. It's happened a couple of times, when an idea will get pitched in the room, and it's also something, in terms of "the goring"—what we've been calling it—we do something that was in the comic way back when, and it was in Season 1 of the original show as well, so it really stemmed more from that and in terms of methodology, how can we best move amongst, if we have to go walk among them, rather than killing them as we go, is there a way to do it?

With Nick specifically, when he confronts and goes face to face with the dead in Episode 3, that's the beginning of what ultimately ends with his relationship with Celia, which is this notion that there's something more here, that they're not as mindless as they may seem—they're not dead. That's the first time he feels that connection and starts to have that belief, and that's why the weight of killing the dead starts to weigh on him to a degree as well. It's happened a couple of times. We overlap occasionally.

I love how this season has been filmed very cinematically with drone cameras and taking the story to sea. Did you and your creative team specifically set out to give Season 2 that cinematic feel?

Dave Erickson: I think it was Andrew Bernstein—who came on as our producer and director this season—who pitched the drone with the seascape and that balance between the arid qualities, and there's some great stuff coming up in the back half as well that really exploits the drone. It was a specific feature, something we wanted to do that would open the show up a little bit more, give it more scope and really allow us to feel, not just the seascape, but the landscape once we returned to land. We'll see a lot more of that when we get to the back half because we're going to start to skew a little bit more towards earth over water when we get to the back half of the season.

When you look back on this first half of Season 2, what are you the most proud of you and your team accomplishing so far?

Dave Erickson: I'm proud of the fact that we were able to make the transition, in a very practical sense, to water, just because that was a huge creative and practical challenge for us. We had not explored that before and there was a lot to learn in a relatively short period of time. What I'm most proud of, especially in terms of the writers and directors and everybody, is that tonally there were elements that we wanted to hold on to, in terms of the anxiety and the paranoia and the pressure that we tried to exploit in Season 1. We tried to hold on to those elements, but at the same time, really increase the scope and the scale of the show.

Season 1, we were a little bit isolated. We ended up spending a good chunk of it stuck in barber shops or in our house and in our neighborhood, and it wasn't until the very end of that season that we opened the door to the larger chaos that surrounded them and got a chance to see the devastation. Incorporating and threading in something, expanding the palette the way we did and blowing things up a bit more, it's interesting. I'm also very excited by the prospect of shooting Mexico from Mexico and actually spending some time and finding more story, more narrative, in this border world between the US and Mexico. That's something we begin to do, especially in the back half of this season and then we'll continue to explore it in Season 3. That, to me, is exciting because it's distinctive and it gives us an opportunity as storytellers to explore some different angles.