The Clark-Manawa Family | California | Mexico | Texas | Southeast USA
Due to the Anyone Can Die nature of the show and quickly moving plots, only spoilers from the current/most recent season will be spoiled out to prevent entire pages of whited out text. These spoiler tags will be removed upon the debut of the following season, and the character bios will be updated then as well. Additionally, character portraits will be updated each half-season with the release of an official, complete set from AMC. If you have not seen the first seven seasons read at your own risk!
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PADRE
In General
A well-armed, secretive organization operating in the Gulf of Mexico. They've become feared and reviled for their practice of taking children from their parents and indoctrinating them to believe PADRE is the future, lying to them that their parents abandoned them.
- The Dreaded: PADRE has become a feared name in the Gulf of Mexico region due to their child trafficking.
- Evil All Along: After Teddy's nukes, survivors in Texas begin hearing radio chatter about PADRE and many believe they are a sanctuary. Alicia spends most of the season believing PADRE is something she needs to provide for her people and even leaves the show determined to help people find it, or their own version of it. The end of Season 7 reveals that they are simply another antagonistic group.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Of Season 7. Strand and the Stalkers are the primary threats, but PADRE lurks in the background and the search for PADRE or any sanctuary in the nuclear devastation of Texas drives most of the cast throughout the season.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: Their guards don't have the best track records so far, constantly getting tricked and distracted and frequently letting their prisoners get free.
- Hated by All: Hoo, boy. Everyone in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. who knows who they really are hates them with a passion because of how they so callously tear families apart, and have been able to get away with it thanks to their resources.
- Heel–Face Turn: In "All I See Is Red", PADRE reforms under Madison's leadership, with their first goal being to reunite the prefects and children with any of their surviving parents.
- Individuality Is Illegal: No relationships are allowed between any members with any who do form friendships or romantic relationships swiftly shut down.
- Motive Decay: PADRE's initial goal was to retake the mainland with their ample resources. After General Krennick died, his children Ben and Sam took over the organization, distraught from the loss of their father, and turned it into a loveless dystopia fueled by child abduction and brainwashing that they intend to spread across the mainland.
- Moving the Goalposts: Madison relates how they promised to help her find her children, but kept demanding more and more of her in return. It's likely they never intended to help her given Alicia and Nick were too old to be raised and brainwashed by them. Madison speculates it's also a method to gaslight their recruits into joining full-time, since by the time she did everything PADRE asked, she was so ashamed of what she'd done she refused to search for them and declared she'd gone too far.
- No Blood Ties: Even if a woman is pregnant and joins PADRE as an operative, she is not allowed to raise her child. No parent who joins PADRE alongside their child is allowed to be near them let alone raise them. Anyone in a romantic relationship, marriage or otherwise, are not allowed to be together either, as Dwight and Sherry had to hide the former’s parentage of Finch for them to be able to work together.
- Would Hurt a Child: They are willing to conduct potentially lethal experiments on children.
- You Are Number 6: Subverted, then played straight. General Krennick had his children and other operatives use codenames taken from the names of birds for security's sake, which isn't a bad idea. However, by the present, Ben and Sam use the codenames as part of their efforts to dehumanize their operatives, especially the children they raise without familial connections.
Leadership
"PADRE" I
General Krennick
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
The founder of PADRE, a US army general who set up a safe-zone off the Gulf Coast intending to help rebuild the mainland.
- Cynicism Catalyst: His death broke his children and set them on the path to child trafficking.
- Death by Origin Story: He is introduced and killed off in the same episode that reveals the origins of PADRE.
- Face Death with Dignity: Even while being eaten alive, he kept his composure and simply told his children to carry on his mission and that he loved them.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He gave his life to help his children climb to safety from the walkers.
- Posthumous Character: Long dead by Season 8.
- Villainous Legacy: Subverted. Krennick himself was not a villain as far as we can tell, but his mission was adopted by his children who went off the deep end to become evil child traffickers.
"PADRE" II
Ben Krennick/PADRE II/"Crane"
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
The son of General Krennick.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He shares the role with his sister Sam/Shrike; while she handles the day-to-day operations, Ben poses as the mysterious figurehead "PADRE" and makes most of their decisions.
- Big Bad Ensemble: In the penultimate episode he returns and poises a threat to both Madison and Troy as he wants PADRE back under his control. He ends up getting killed by walkers, leaving Troy as the Big Bad again.
- Big Bad Wannabe: His final appearance has him as this, easily getting his men killed before he gets jumped by a few walkers.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: He has grown a Beard of Evil by the present after fully turning PADRE into a villainous organization.
- Heel–Face Turn: He's convinced to stand down after learning of his sister's bite and that they have the needed coordinates, and cedes control to Madison… but returns as a threat in the penultimate episode determined to retake PADRE.
- King Incognito: When not behind a see-through mirror, he is simply Crane, a high-ranking PADRE member.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: He's complicit with the monstrous evil that PADRE has become since his father's death, but he's still retained enough of his humanity. He's genuinely kind to the children on the base, and later realizes PADRE is wrong and they must pull a Heel–Face Turn. Compare that to his sadistic freak of a sister. And then it’s subverted when he returns in the penultimate episode fully loyal to PADRE’s old ways and wanting to bring it back.
- Meaningful Name: His nickname is "Crane", which fits as he stands above all of PADRE in spite of not revealing himself as the leader.
- Sole Survivor: Of the Krennick family after Shrike dies from her walker bite. He later gets eaten by walkers, ending the Krennick family line.
- Took a Level in Badass: He was a klutzy, inexperienced young man when the Fall took place, but has become a ruthless, hardened child trafficker.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: He has not been seen since the reformation of PADRE in "All I See Is Red". He returns in the penultimate episode.
"Shrike"
Samantha Krennick/"Shrike"
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
The daughter of General Krennick.
- Arc Villain: She's only around for the first half of Season 8.
- Asshole Victim: The biggest sadist in PADRE who has surely countless innocent people on her kill-list and was the primary leader of a reign of terror in the Gulf of Mexico that tore countless families apart. Nobody besides her brother will miss her.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: She shares the role of Season 8's Big Bad with her brother Ben, handling most of the day-to-day operations while he rules from the shadows and makes decisions in private.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The main villain of Season 8A, with a final six episodes to go in the season and the series.
- Evil Is Petty:
- She has June's finger cut off without anesthetic to pay her back for doing the same to her.
- She has a dirty taunt towards Morgan throwing the blame on him for not being able to save Grace from the walker that bit her.
- General Failure: Downplayed. The first half of Season 8 frequently show her getting knocked out or captured, but she is quick-witted enough to usually turn the tables on her captors.
- Girlish Pigtails: In the flashbacks to PADRE's formation shortly after the Fall, she is wearing her hair in pigtails in an attempt to make her look twelve years younger.
- Hated by All: Everyone outside of PADRE hates her guts for being a sadistic, controlling prick.
- Hate Sink: She has few redeeming qualities and is the face of the villainous PADRE. Once she's gone, the rest of PADRE is quickly able to reform.
- The Heavy: While she and her brother run PADRE together, Shrike is the most frequently seen of the pair throughout Season 8.
- It's Personal: She really hates June due to her removing one of her fingers and pays her back in kind when she gets the chance.
- Karmic Death: She's bitten by the walker of her father, whose noble mission she helped corrupt into a vile child-trafficking operation. She nearly got an even worse one when she was left to June's mercy, but Finch asked for June to spare her any of the pain he was also going through.
- Meaningful Name: A "Shrike" is a small bird, but contrary to its appearance, it is actually a vicious carnivore which even decapitates small mammals with its sharp beak. It should be no surprise that the person with such a title is PADRE's biggest sadist.
- Smug Snake: One of her defining traits is how infuriatingly smug and cocky she is. Her way of doing things is right, and if you break from it, you’re in the wrong and she’ll gloat about it. Once she's finally emotionally broken, she loses her smug demeanor.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: She always keeps her cool, but she's a vile, fanatical creep.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: After six episodes of being set up as a powerful antagonist and earning the ire of every main character, Shrike simply lets herself be bitten by a simple walker.
- We Have Reserves: Countless people have been sacrificed in her experiments to find a cure for the walker virus, and she has little to no regard for any troops willing to follow her command either.
- Would Hurt a Child: Has no issues personally conducting potentially lethal experiments on children, as best seen when she allows a walker to bite Finch on the shoulder, meaning that if June's treatment fails, he will die. Sure enough, he does die. She also begins taking prefects into the field against Morgan and Daniel's people, using them as glorified human shields in the event Morgan and company do start resorting to lethal force to fight back against PADRE.
Operatives
"Lark"
"Lark"/Madison Clark
A former collector who defected and became a prisoner. See her entry in The Clark-Manawa Family "Nightingale"
"Nightingale"/Morgan Jones
Once the leader of an organized group in Texas, now a collector. See his entry in Morgan Jones "Heron"
"Heron"/Grace Mukherjee
The lover of Morgan Jones and a veteran of his Texas group, now a collector. See her entry in Texas "Red Kite"
"Red Kite"/Dwight
A former member of an extortionist gang on the East Coast called the Saviors, though he defected from them and was exiled from the territory after helping engineering their defeat. Later joined Morgan's group, now a collector and trainer of prefects. See his entry in Former Saviors "Starling"
"Starling"/Sherry
A former prisoner of the Savior leader Negan before fleeing the East Coast, reunited with her husband Dwight in Texas, now a collector. See her entry in Former Saviors "Blue Jay"
"Blue Jay"/June Dorie
A former nurse and the widow of former lawman John Dorie, Jr; was conscripted to medical experiments but defected and fled. See her entry in TexasPrefects
"Wren"
"Wren"/Mo
An eight-year-old who was surrendered by her adoptive father Morgan Jones and grew up unaware of her parentage. See her entry in Texas
"Dove"
"Dove"/Odessa Sanderson
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
A friend of Wren's.
- Blind Obedience: It's not really her fault, but unlike Wren, Odessa really doesn't have a will of her own, simply following Shrike because she doesn't know anything else. When Shrike and Crane are dealt with, she plots to leave PADRE due to the original mission being discontinued and being convinced the new leaders can't keep her and the other children safe.
- Despair Event Horizon: Learning her mother is dead causes her to double down on her loyalty to PADRE out of grief.
- Determinator: When she thinks June, Sherry, and Dwight won't be able to save her from a bullet wound, she starts trying to pull it out herself and nearly kills herself in the process.
- The Dragon: She becomes the most diehard loyalist of the prefects, giving orders and demanding the others follow through on them.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- She understandably gets weirded out when one of Daniel's militia starts eying her in an overly affectionate way due to believing she's her daughter, and points out that even if she really is her mother, she's not going to go running into the arms of a stranger she just met. As it turns out, the woman is not Dove's mother, though she still seems insistent on taking Dove as her adopted daughter nonetheless.
- In "Sanctuary", though it's laced with her lingering fanaticism towards the only life she's ever known with PADRE, she does accurately call out Dwight, Sherry, and June that they need to get their shit together if they're going to survive the day, let alone save her and PADRE from Troy or other threats.
- Heel–Face Turn: She stands down once Morgan, Mo, and Madison convince the other prefects and Ben to do so as well. However, it's Subverted when "Sanctuary" reveals she was only biding her time so she could escape PADRE due to not having faith in its new leaders. By the end of the episode it seems she's finally pulled one for good.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Downplayed with her and Wren. They're both minors, but Odessa is about twice as old as her.
- Missing Mom: In "Odessa" she learns that her mother Ava is long-dead.
- Token Good Teammate: She’s as close to a friend to Mo as she can be.
"Finch"
"Finch"
The son of Dwight and Sherry.
- Canon Foreigner: Dwight and Sherry never had a child in the comics.
- Character Death: He dies offscreen in "All I See Is Red."
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: He initially seems to survive his walker bite thanks to June's treatment, but unfortunately he relapses and eventually succumbs to it.
- Ill Boy: He's suffering from appendicitis when he's first introduced, and later gets even worse when Shrike has a walker head bite him.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Dwight and Sherry were unable to give him a proper given name before PADRE took him, leaving him only with his codename "Finch." After his death, Dwight lampshades this, but Sherry accepts "Finch" as his name.
- Zombie Infectee: Shrike has a walker head bite him on the shoulder to motivate June to perfect her walker bite treatment. Miraculously, June's radiation treatment does extend Finch's lifespan considerably past the usual time frame a victim of a walker bite has, even though it eventually returns and kills him.
The Hotel
Frank
Frank
Portrayed by:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
Strand's new husband, who was originally from Germany but got stranded in America thanks to the Fall.
- Amicable Exes: Implied to have been the case with the woman he conceived Klaus with. Though it didn't work out, he still speaks of her respectfully and shows some remorse over her passing.
- Brutal Honesty: Unlike Strand who will lie his ass off to try to benefit himself and others, Frank shoots straight and quickly grows frustrated when he realizes Strand has told lie after lie, and asks him to come clean.
- Happily Married: He has a loving relationship with Strand, and he even assures Strand that while he can tell he's trying to hide something terrible he did, he would prefer he just spill it because he promises he can forgive him.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's one of the leaders of the hotel community and is welcome to friendly outsiders who need help, and quickly notices Strand acting suspiciously.
- Second Love: Strand's second known major lover after the long-dead Thomas Abigail.
- What the Hell, Hero?: He's not afraid to hold his husband's feet to the fire once he starts acting suspiciously and notices odd signs like knowing where a raft was in case of a needed getaway.
Klaus
Klaus
Portrayed by:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
Frank's son and Strand's stepson, originally from Germany.
- Children Are Innocent: Downplayed since he's a young adult, but he's even more idealistic than Frank, quickly coming to trust Madison even when his parents can't agree on what to do with her.
- Happily Adopted: He loves Strand as his stepfather.
- Missing Mom: His mother and Frank separated long, long ago, thus he doesn't mind this being in effect, especially now that he has Strand as a stepfather.
Troy’s Group
Russell
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
Troy’s second-in-command.
- Ascended Extra: He was just an extra but becomes a major antagonist in the show’s final two episodes.
- Asshole Victim: Nobody minds when Dwight feeds him to his own horde.
- Death Faked for You: He was sent to finish off Alicia after a fight with Troy, but when he found blood and no sign of Alicia, he reported to Troy that she died of her injuries. Thus, Troy starts claiming he killed Alicia and leads others to believe it’s true, while Alicia is actually alive and using an alias.
- The Dragon: He is Troy’s right hand man.
- Dragon Ascendant: After Troy’s death he sees no reason to not attack PADRE to avenge him and becomes the final threat of the series.
- Final Boss: After Troy and Ben’s deaths, he attacks PADRE in the final episode and his horde is the last threat of the series.
- Karmic Death: Gets fed to the horde he deployed against PADRE.
- Villainous Friendship: He’s genuinely good friends with Troy and does care about him and Tracy.
Tracy
Tracy Otto
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
The daughter of Troy Otto.
-
Dawson Casting: Antonella Rose was about 12 years old during shooting, while Tracy was apparently 8. - Enfante Terrible: She’s not a complete monster but she does try her damndest to kill several characters with no remorse.
- Heel–Face Turn: After finally being convinced of the good in Madison and Alicia, she joins them as an adopted family member.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: In the penultimate episode Troy claims with his last breaths that she is Alicia’s daughter who he stole and raised to spite her. However, the next episode has Alicia reveal this isn’t true, and she and Madison surmise Troy only told the lie hoping that it would buy his daughter’s safety if Madison believed the girl was her granddaughter.
- Walking Spoiler: Part of a lot of plot twists and turns in the show’s final episodes.
Other survivors
Ava
Ava Sanderson
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 7)
A woman encountered by Morgan and Madison looking for her kidnapped daughter.
- Mama Bear: Just one of the many parents who have lost their children to PADRE and are willing to take violent means to get them back.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Only around for one episode.
"The Posse"
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 7)
A gang of parents who are hunting PADRE to get their children back.
- Anti-Villain: They're only hostile to Morgan due to the trauma they're suffering from having had their children abducted by PADRE. They come close to joining forces with the heroes several times, but due to various mishaps they remain hostile enemies.
- Author Vocabulary Calendar: One of the writers must've really liked the word "posse", because Morgan goes out of his way to refer to these characters as such.
- Final Boss: They're the final antagonists faced in Season 7.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Only around for one episode, but in Season 8 Daniel forms a militia out of other victims of PADRE's child trafficking ensuring their mission lives on.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: They fear that Morgan is a PADRE collector and show him little to no mercy.
Marty
Portrayed By:
Appearances: Fear the Walking Dead (Season 8)
A man leading a gang of violent survivors in the ruins of the former Savior empire.
- Bald of Evil: He's bald and a ruthless antagonist.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Very ironically so given he's operating out of the remnants of one of the most notorious villains of the franchise. Marty thinks he's a powerful, genius threat, but he's really just some guy leading a group of well-armed survivors. He may have the Sanctuary and whatever surviving infrastructure there is, but he doesn't have any cars, his men are easily defeated, and he ends up getting killed by the walker of his friend he proudly declared he'd feed Dwight to. Even without taking Dwight's group into account, he seemingly has no idea he's on the outskirts of territory held by the much stronger, vaster powers of the Coalition who would have no trouble dealing with his gang.
- The Bully: He antagonizes other survivors just because he can.
- Facial Horror: He gets his face torn apart and eaten by a walker who just emerged from a furnace, meaning not only does he have to suffer the pain of being Eaten Alive, but also the pain from a scalding hot walker burning him with every touch.
- Villain of the Week: He's only the threat of "Sanctuary".
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Only around for one episode.
