Trivia / Fear the Walking Dead

• Actor-Shared Background: Travis is revealed to be Maori, like Cliff Curtis, the actor playing him. However, he's apparently American-born or spent most of his life in the US since he has an American accent.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Frank Dillane (Nick) has said that he didn't like the changes that Season 4 brought to the storyline, didn't want to do the crossover, and was worried about being stuck working on the show for several years, an issue that other Walking Dead actors encountered.
  • Michael Greyeyes, Qaleteqa Walker's actor, was shocked by the departures of several actors including Kim Dickens and was disappointed by the turn Season 4 took with the show.
  • It took some heavy convincing to persuade Alycia Debnam-Carey to return as Alicia for the show’s Grand Finale as she initially blew off an offer to come back, having moved on from the character, though she didn't actually dislike coming back to finish what she started with Kim Dickens and Colman Domingo.
• The Danza: Two partial examples:
  • Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia Clark.
  • Elizabeth Rodriguez as Elizabeth Ortiz, who goes by Liza.
• Directed By Castmember:
  • Colman Domingo (Strand) directed "Weak" in Season 4, "Humbug's Gulch" in Season 5, and "Alaska" in Season 6.
  • Lennie James (Morgan) directed "Welcome to the Club" in Season 6 and "Till Death" in Season 7.
  • Alycia Debnam-Carey (Alicia) directed "Ofelia" in Season 7.
  • Danay Garcia (Luciana) directed "Anton" in Season 8.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Panamanian Rubén Blades' character is a refugee from El Salvador.
  • Also Frank Dillane (British), Alycia Debnam-Carey (Australian) and Cliff Curtis (Kiwi) play American characters.
  • Danay Garcia is a Cuban American playing a Mexican.
  • Both Otto sons are Brits playing Americans.
• God Never Said That: Prior to the series premiere, many sites misattributed a quote from actress Lexi Johnson (who played the undead Gloria in the pilot) and believed that she was "Patient Zero" for the outbreak. This is not true at all - the morning after Gloria tries to attack Nick in the church, Tobias tells Madison that he has reports of the dead coming back to life in five states, showing that the outbreak had been spreading long before Gloria was infected and turned. However, this hasn't stopped some fans from believing the articles to be true.
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • A very ironic example for Season 6. "In Dreams" aired on May 9th, 2021, which happened to be Mother's Day. With an event that celebrates the relationships between a mother and her child, this caused many viewers to be shocked by the Tragic Stillbirth that Grace went through.
  • A year later in Season 7, “Sonny Boy” aired on Mother’s Day 2022, but focuses on John Dorie, Sr., as he contends with his attempt to save a baby and reflects on his legacy as a father. He also perishes in this episode after giving his life to save baby Mo.
  • The mid-season 8 premiere "Anton" featuring the new Big Bad arriving and instigating a hostage crisis using most of the heroes coincidentally aired on October 22, 2023, one day before the seventh anniversary of the infamous Walking Dead seventh season premiere "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be" in which Negan does exactly the same thing.
  • The Grand Finale of the series aired on November 19, 2023, a single day before the first anniversary of the Grand Finale of The Walking Dead.
• Playing Against Type: Cliff Curtis has spent most of his career playing tough guys, but here he's playing a mild, idealistic and decidedly nonviolent English teacher.
• Playing Their Own Twin: Demetrius Grosse as twin brothers Emile and Josiah LaRoux.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • John Glover was cast as Teddy just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and temporarily shut down production of Season 6. He used the downtime to grow out a huge beard he thought befitted the character who originally was not specified to be bearded.
  • Season 7 having most of the cast separated and its episodes following a Bottle Episode/anthology format likely is partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic limiting how many actors can be present in an episode.
    • On the same beat, the Demoted to Extra treatment of the chunk of the main cast that includes Daniel Salazar is likely out of a precaution taken to protect the elderly Rubén Blades during the pandemic. Daniel notably doesn’t return to focus until late in the season, at a time at which vaccines became available and it finally became safer for Blades to have more screentime.
  • Alicia is written out of the series after Season 7 due to Alycia Debnam-Carey wanting to leave the show, but the character is given a clear open door for her to return if she ever wishes, and she does indeed return for the end of the series finale.
• Role Reprise: In Season 8, Keisha Tillis and Adrian Kali Turner reprise their roles as Jenny and Duanne Jones (who is now a walker like his mother), thirteen years after they previously only appeared in the pilot episode of The Walking Dead.
• Those Two Actors:
  • Kim Dickens (Madison Clark), Dayton Callie (Jeremiah Otto), Ray McKinnon (Proctor John), Garret Dillahunt (John Dorie), and Keith Carradine (John Dorie Sr.) were all previously in Deadwood (as Joanie Stubbs, Charlie Utter, Reverend Smith, Jack McCall/Francis Wolcott, and Wild Bill Hickok, respectively).
  • Dickens, Callie, and McKinnon also appeared on Sons of Anarchy (as Colette Jane, Wayne Unser, and Lincoln Potter, respectively).
• What Could Have Been: As explained by Dave Erickson here, he reveals a few details that he would have done had he stayed as showrunner for Season 4 and beyond:
  • Proctor John would have been the Big Bad of Season 4.
  • Alicia, Madison, and Nick would continue to be the main characters.
  • It was considered at one point that Troy was supposed to live a little longer instead of dying at the end of Season 3, but it was decided that the aftermath of the Ottos vs. Clarks story would be about Madison and Nick coming to terms with it. Nonetheless, Troy is revealed to have survived and becomes the Big Bad in the second half of Season 8.
  • Madison's arc would have seen her evolve into a villain, and in Erickson's opinion, he would have ended the show with Madison still alive. Only the last part of that comes to pass.
  • Nick, "in any version" of the planned story, would still be alive.
  • Daniel would have stayed and part of his arc would be seeing Lola as his Replacement Goldfish for Ofelia.
  • The original base for the Season 4 plan was that Madison, Nick, Alicia, Strand, Daniel, and possibly Troy were supposed to reunite.
  • An episode of Season 5 would’ve been filmed live on an AMC set, but it later morphed into the documentary episode due to the logistics involved being too much.
  • A pitched episode would’ve focused on Skidmark the cat and Wendell’s dog surviving together but was shot down for being too out there even for the franchise.
• Word of God: After the end of the series, the showrunners admitted they ran out of time to include the Rabinowitz twins and Rabbi Jacob in the final season, but stated "in [their] imagination" they’re still alive and working roads between Texas and the East Coast.

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