Fear The Walking Dead season 8 jumps ahead seven years, with plenty happening during the interim for Morgan, PADRE, Madison, and many other characters. The reveal of Fear the Walking Dead season 8’s massive time jump seals Charlie’s fate in the series and proves her death can’t be avoided.
The Season 8 premiere, “Remember What They Took From You,” opens at PADRE’s headquarters on an island sometime after the Season 7 finale. Morgan Jones is being interrogated by the voice of PADRE, who remains unseen and preaches about building a new world that won’t fall apart like the old one.
After PADRE reveals that they found most survivors on the rafts and after an interrogation involving baby Mo’s cries through a baby monitor, Morgan and Madison Clark take PADRE’s soldiers by surprise. Madison holds the hidden PADRE at gunpoint and urges Morgan to find Mo.
1. Morgan returned to PADRE and started working for them
Morgan and Madison successfully rescued Mo and escaped from PADRE after the ending of Fear The Walking Dead season 7. However, Morgan then needed help navigating the swampy wastelands on the mainland. He had no choice but to run back to PADRE, tail firmly between his legs.
Despite disagreeing with PADRE’s philosophy and methods, Morgan knew he could count on this villainous community to at least provide Mo with food, shelter, and safety.
In exchange, Morgan was forced to offer his services as a collector. Despite his attempts to remain guilt-free by only taking children after obtaining their parents’ consent, this time skip is undeniably one of the darkest periods in Morgan’s long journey.
Although Morgan had Grace for the company during this time, a frostiness exists between them in “Remember What They Took From No.” Even referring to each other by their PADRE code names, Morgan and Grace appear barely more than friends from work.
2. PADRE’s Madison Experiment During the Time Skip
Before season 8-time skip, Madison stayed behind, holding the gun while Morgan and Mo escaped PADRE. From Madison’s perspective, this would have been self-sacrificial penance to repay for stealing children as a PADRE collector.
In a flashback set at some unknown point during the time skip, Madison is seen attempting to take her own life, demonstrating how she no longer possesses a motivating goal. Madison remains unaware of Alicia’s survival, so between losing her family and the guilt of breaking up other families, Kim Dickens’ Fear The Walking Dead veteran obviously feels her story is over.
Fear The Walking Dead season 8’s time jump baffles viewers as PADRE takes repeated blood samples from Madison’s arm, leaving viewers to speculate what could be happening. We see Mo learning about PADRE and its protocol for testing new intakes. She questions whether multiple samples would suffice since Madison is confined in a cell.
It becomes evident that these experiments had darker motives—as expected in The Walking Dead universe. Moreover, these attempts to end the zombie apocalypse hold significance, as these experiments ultimately aim to end it.
Three potential outcomes could take place. First, PADRE could use Madison as a test subject for an experimental drug trial. In this scenario, Madison’s fate would hang in the balance as PADRE carefully monitors her body’s reaction to potential bites, reminiscent of Troy Otto’s terrifying experience in Fear The Walking Dead season 3.
PADRE may believe that Madison possesses some innate immunity against infection, given her miraculous survival in Fear The Walking Dead Season 7. Even though her mother struggled against illness in the final episode, Alicia appeared unaffected by the infection. Alicia fought off zombie virus exposure in Fear The Walking Dead season 7.
3. Due to a Time Jump during Season 8 of Fear The Walking Dead, Certain Characters are Missing
Aside from Morgan, Madison, Mo, and Grace, no other Fear The Walking Dead characters appear in season 8’s premiere. This leaves their statuses unclear after the seven-year time skip.
During Morgan and Madison’s PADRE infiltration mission, the mysterious unseen leader confirms that the passenger raft fleet was picked up after Fear The Walking Dead season 7’s ending. These rafts contained the likes of Daniel, Charlie, Victor Strand, June, Dwight, Sherry, Grace, and Luciana. Given that Grace is a collector post-time skip, it seems likely that most of the above are now working for PADRE in some capacity.
Fear The Walking Dead drops an intriguing hint that suggests certain major characters might have successfully escaped PADRE’s clutches. When Morgan receives information from PADRE regarding the discovered rafts, the mysterious voice implies that fewer passengers are on board than initially expected.
This could indicate that some significant characters fled PADRE before being captured, or their rafts drifted to a different location. Notably, during the promotion of the eighth season of Fear The Walking Dead, it was confirmed that an anti-PADRE resistance exists, which could lead to divisions among the survivors after the seven-year time jump.
4. Is Charlie’s Fate Sealed With the Time Skip?
Fear of the Walking Dead’s impending time skip seals Charlie’s fate in the series.
By advancing seven years in the Walking Dead timeline, Fear the Walking Dead has put the final nail in the coffin for one of the show’s principal characters. It’s been known since season 7 that Charlie is dying of radiation poisoning, but the show has since prolonged the death it promised her.
Various members of Morgan’s group, like June and Daniel, have continued to care for Alexa Nisenson’s Charlie while they wait for the inevitable to come to pass. Since the show’s story tends to play out over a short timeframe, the series has been able to keep her around. But with such a massive time jump on the horizon, Charlie will have to die before the final six episodes.
It’s hard to imagine Charlie surviving the show and dying after the show ends, especially now. In light of her worsening condition, it wouldn’t make sense for Charlie to be still hanging at this point in the timeline. Nor can her prognosis be rolled back since characters like June have been so adamant that she’s dying.
Also, bringing Charlie back for season 8’s second half would force the show to recast her, given that she’s supposed to be 13 years old. Fear the Walking Dead should use its next few episodes to bring her story to a close.
5. About Fear The Walking Dead
Fear the Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series created by Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson for AMC. It is a spin-off to The Walking Dead, which is based on the comic book series of the same name by Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard.
The first three seasons serve as a prequel, focusing on a blended family that experiences the start of the zombie apocalypse. Subsequent seasons run concurrently to the original show, with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) from The Walking Dead crossing over into the series.
The series premiered on August 23, 2015, and has completed its seventh season. The eighth season premiered in May 2023.
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