Well that was quick. On Fear the Walking Dead, Alicia unexpectedly, and bafflingly, opens fire on one particular new survivor introduced this season. But who? And why?
Spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead ahead.
In “Just In Case,” the latest episode of Fear the Walking Dead, Naomi (Jenna Elfman) bonds with Madison (Kim Dickens) and Strand (Colman Domingo) by revealing her harrowing origin story; apparently an entire FEMA shelter turned because Naomi left her sick daughter, Rose, while she went off to find antibiotics. It’s tragic, to be sure, but it’s the climax of the episode that will give Fear the Walking Dead viewers a real kick to the gut.
At the end of the episode, Naomi has somehow defected to the Vultures. And upon her return — to the delight of John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt) — an enraged Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) opens fire, but John takes the bullet instead. This was their reunion for the first time in months, and it’s been cut horribly short by a bullet, fired for reasons yet to be revealed.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, co-showrunner Ian Goldberg confirms that John Dorie is not dead — yet. “At least not in that moment,” he said. “There’s much more story to tell.”
One man has been left alone to die in the apocalypse by their romantic partner and is about to witness an all-out war between two sides for no reason. The other is Morgan (Lennie James).
Because it’s a Walking Dead show, of course John Dorie could either 1) live for another entire season, or 2) will die later, and will stick around for the rest of the year immortalized through flashbacks. (Hello, Nick.) But really, it’s not John Dorie’s fate that viewers should question. It’s Madison’s, whose absence in the present timeline is so glaring, it’s practically screaming that Madison has met a grim fate at the hands of — someone. Before this week’s episode, it wasn’t hard to imagine the killers being the Vultures. But now, with Alicia’s rage upon seeing Naomi, it begs the question: Did Naomi kill Madison?
Or maybe, Madison is alive. ComicBook recently caught up with Colman Domingo at Walker Stalker Con in Nashville, and reported that Madison maybe isn’t dead after all. “There’s a lot of hope for Madison!” Domingo said. “You never know. There’s some speculation. They don’t know what’s going on because we haven’t seen her in the new timeline. Is she kidnapped? Did she runaway? Is she holed up somewhere in a basement? You have no idea.”
Maybe Naomi sold out Madison, and now the Vultures keep her in their basement? It could happen. There have been weirder things in this post-apocalyptic shared universe. Plus, this episode was themed all around the idea of contingency plans, evidenced by Victor’s confession of his own truck that he gave up for the rest of the Diamond several weeks ago. If Madison is alive, and that’s a big fat if, she definitely has a plan in mind. Just in case.
Fear the Walking Dead will resume June 3 at 9 p.m. Eastern on AMC.
