The first of many spin-offs from The Walking Dead franchise, Fear the Walking Dead, is promising a proper ending in its series finale, which is a lot more than the other Walking Dead shows’ endings have done. Fear the Walking Dead began much closer to the initial outbreak of the zombie virus than the original series. It follows a whole different group of survivors making their way across The Walking Dead’s zombie-infested world. The series is ending its run with an eighth and final season that’s slowly building towards a series finale episode that will conclude the story once and for all.
Michael E. Satrazemis, an executive producer and director who has worked on The Walking Dead and a handful of its spin-offs, including Fear the Walking Dead, shed some light on the show’s upcoming ending in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. He explained that, while the other Walking Dead shows have focused on their connective tissue, Fear the Walking Dead will have a “complete end” in its series finale. He said that the ending is truly conclusive, and will honor the series and its sprawling ensemble cast. This is good news, because proper endings are in short supply in The Walking Dead franchise.
Fear The Walking Dead’s “Complete” Finale Is Good For The Spinoff’s Ending
Fear the Walking Dead will conclude its run with season 8, episode 12, titled “The Road Ahead,” which is set to air along with episode 11, “Fighting Like You,” on November 19. The final season of Fear the Walking Dead has been focused squarely on the spin-off’s ongoing storylines, like the heroes’ fight against the expansion of PADRE, so there’s no sign that it’ll get sidetracked and turn its attention elsewhere. This is joyous news for Walking Dead fans who have been deprived of definitive endings for over a decade now – they’ll actually get to see the end of a story.
4 Other Walking Dead Shows Have Made This Ending Mistake
Almost every other show in The Walking Dead franchise – including the flagship series itself – has avoided a proper ending. By the time the original Walking Dead series finally ended, so many sequels and spin-offs were lined up that the finale episode (season 11, episode 24, “Rest in Peace”) was more about setting up future storylines than providing closure on the storylines at hand. Both Rick and Michonne returned in the finale, but it was just to set up their upcoming spin-off, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Maggie’s rivalry with Negan got some closure, but that was just to set up their team-up in The Walking Dead: Dead City.
The final episode of The Walking Dead: World Beyond (season 2, episode 10, “The Last Light”) spent its closing scene introducing faster, stronger, and more aggressive zombie variants, with some worldbuilding about the French origins of the virus and a callback to Dr. Edwin Jenner from way back in The Walking Dead season 1. This finale was more interested in building out the larger Walking Dead universe than focusing on its own characters. The Walking Dead: Dead City season 1 ended its finale episode – episode 6, “Doma Smo” – with Maggie realizing that her son Hershel is still under threat from the Dama, setting up even more conflict for the future.
The advantage that Fear the Walking Dead has over these other Walking Dead shows is that there are no spin-offs in development featuring any of the characters from Fear the Walking Dead. The end of their series is also the end of their own stories. This is usually the case with television, but it’s often a different case when an intertwining universe like The Walking Dead is involved. The characters of the original series had spin-offs to set up, but Fear the Walking Dead doesn’t have that burden. It just needs to avoid pivoting away from its own characters entirely like the World Beyond finale.
The most recent finale episode in The Walking Dead franchise – The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1, episode 6, “Coming Home” – was similarly more interested in setup than closure. It ended with the return of Carol Peletier, who finds Daryl’s stolen motorcycle on her journey to find him. Rather than concluding the story of the season, this ending sets up the story of the next season, which has been dubbed The Book of Carol. It’s about time a story in The Walking Dead franchise actually ended, and it sounds like the Fear the Walking Dead finale will finally provide that.
