Fear the Walking Dead showrunner on the 'badass yacht' and 'seabound refugees' waiting in season 2 

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season finale featured more zombies and more action than the rest of the season combined. In the end, the group was reunited and fled to new ally (?) Strand’s house by the ocean. But in those final few moments, we were treated to two twists. Twist #1: Strand’s plan was to get off land entirely and escape the infected by getting to his yacht out in the water. Twist #2: Liza would not be going with them. Bitten by a zombie, Liza asked Madison to shoot her before she turned, but Travis showed up and insisted on doing it himself. It was a finale both heartbreaking and hopeful.

showrunner Dave Erickson to break down the events of the finale while also looking ahead as to what to expect in what could be a wet and wild season 2.

(Read through both pages for the entire interview.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: One of the big things we see in this episode is some of our characters making decisions about whom do you help? And sometimes whom do you hurt to keep yourself and own family safe? Salazar basically attacks the National Guard with a herd of zombies, Strand chooses not to release the other caged up people. Madison and Travis

release those people, but earlier on don’t warn their neighbors about the Guard leaving. Talk to me a little bit about these decisions and the characters having to weigh the cost of their own lives versus the lives of others, because that has been a big theme for you throughout this season.

DAVE ERICKSON: It’s a progression. As for the neighborhood, we don’t see it on camera, but we went back and forth. There’s actually a version where they just slam through the gate with the truck and knock it over. And the question came up: What about the people in the neighborhood, because they’re basically ringing a dinner bell for the walkers to come in? In my mind, you don’t see it on camera, but because Salazar is able to figure out how to open the gate — we don’t see Travis get out of the truck but he very well could have jumped out and hit that button and closed the gate. I also think it would have been easy enough for a neighbor to have come and pressed the button and closed the gate as well. What they don’t know is that the National Guard is leaving. In their minds — being Madison and Travis and company — if they were to notify the entire neighborhood, it would raise alarm. It would create chaos. It would make it that much more difficult for them to save Griselda and Nick and Liza.

And Strand is about self-preservation. I think Strand has his reasons for not freeing the group from the pens, and it’s something that Nick goes along with, although it doesn’t sit quite right with him. And then when we get to the moment where Madison and Travis arrive in the holding pens. They’re there, they’re face to face with these people, and it’s easy enough for them to let those people out. But fundamentally, that’s one of the things that the show thematically is about. It’s about, who do you save? And ultimately that question that Dr. Exner asks Liza of “What is family now?” Those choices we see them making over the course of the finale will be drawn into sharper focus as we get into season 2 because it’s going to become that much more personal, and those choices are going to really impact not just strangers, but our family unit in a really profound way.

And what about Salazar releasing all those infected and siccing them on the national guard? This guy is not playing around.

No, he’s not playing around. I think his perspective is that tactically the one way that they’re going to get in and save their loved ones is to create a distraction that is that sizable and dangerous. From his perspective, at that point they know from Adams that the Guard is pulling out, so in his mind these people have damned us, so we’re going to damn them. And it’s the only way they can get in and get their people out and hopefully restore their family. It’s a very, very bold move and also from their perspective, the Guard are equipped to handle that. They have weapons, they’re behind the fences. I don’t think they necessarily think of it a death sentence for the guardsmen and women who are inside the military compound, but it’s definitely a risky and bold move.

I always figured one of this main group had to die, even beyond Griselda. Why Liza?

The death of Liza is going to have a serious impact, obviously on Chris and on Travis and on Madison, and by extension the rest of the family dynamic. So the tragedy in Liza’s death for me is you ironically have this woman who through the apocalypse is able to practice medicine. She’s able to find some degree of validation. And this was especially tragic and sad for her in that moment to have to lose her life. Ultimately it’s going to be a question of how Travis and Madison can manage that. And manage Chris.

What we wanted to create was this conflict between father and son going into season 2 and to see how they are going to be able to process this. And process a loss that clearly Travis was very hands on with. He was the one that had to put Liza down and put down this woman that he once loved and was the mother of his son. And the trauma of that is something that’s going to carry us for quite a long while.

When you first mapped out your outline of season 1, did you always have Liza dying?

That was always the intention. We didn’t know exactly when that beat would land. We didn’t know when that story would come out, but that was always the plan. But as the writer’s room got together and as the story evolved it ended up landing in the final scenes of the finale.

I gotta say, a gunshot probably wasn’t the smartest way for them to go about that with that loud noise perhaps attracting infected their way.

You know what? That’s a very good point. You should tune into the premiere of next season and you’ll see what happens.

Let’s stick with Travis, who was the one to pull that trigger. Let’s backtrack a bit to where he beat the crap out of that soldier Adams for shooting Ofelia. Was that a fundamental change for Travis going through that? Have we now seen a turn with this character?

It was important to us that we had one character who wrestles with and held on to his humanity for as long as possible, and I think the final insult for him is he tries to have one last benevolent act. He tries to do the right thing by this soldier and it comes back and it bites him in the ass and then almost gets one of his extended and blended family killed. So I think it’s that. This was the final gesture that he could make — the final attempt to hold onto his humanity and his nobility, and it fails. And the goal with Travis was always to break him down to a very fundamental point by the end of the season. So it absolutely is. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s lost his humanity, because clearly he is traumatized by what he has to do at the end of the season. But I do think you’re going to be looking at a character in season 2 who has had something of a wake-up call — a very profound wake up call. And he’s not going to be the same person who is constantly reassuring everyone that things are going to be better, constantly assuring that a corner is about to be turned. He’s going to be a different guy.

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