Alicia takes charge in new Fear the Walking Dead photo 

Kim Dickens, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Lennie James, Garret Dillahunt, Jenna Elfman

began as the story of the intertwined Clark & Manawa families. There were six Clarks or Manawas at the start of the show when it premiered in 2015, but when season 4 returns on Aug. 12, only one remains: Alicia (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey). And we’ve got your exclusive first look at the back half of season 4 with a striking image of the sole survivor.

The back half of the season will examine what all that family loss — including the deaths of Nick and Madison — has done to the last Clark standing. “Alicia is in a very interesting place,” says showrunner Andrew Chambliss. “She lost both her mother and her brother, so for the first time she’s really finding herself in the apocalypse without any of her biological family. Yes she has friends, yes she has Luciana, but there’s a big difference between having your friends around and not having your mother and you brother.”

This will be a sink or swim moment for Alicia. Can she step up to fill the leadership void left by the loss of her mom, or will she not be able to recover from the death of her family? “She’s realizing that she is on her own and is figuring out how she can keep the memory of both Madison and Nick alive,” notes Chambliss. “And a big part of what she’s going to be asking herself is whether she can fill Madison’s shoes and how that’s possible for her moving forward.”

Of course, Alicia will not be the one impacted by the Madison’s death. How she, Luciana, and Strand continue to react to what happened at the baseball stadium will guide the next eight episodes. Is the bloodthirsty revenge out of their system now when things pick back up? And what will their relationship be to each other now that their mission is over? “We’re going to find each of them in a different place, but they’re all going to be kind of grappling with the same fundamental question,” teases Chambliss. “They spent so much of their time on this revenge quest and it was the thing that united the three of them, but now without that, it’s really kind of asking the question of how they relate to each other.”

Not only that, but have they lost their way in terms of how they want to live and who they want to be moving forward. “They are coming to terms with the fact that their revenge mission meant that they, for a time, forgot what Madison died for — the thing she believed in and the hope she tried to keep alive.” says Chambliss. “Those three characters are trying to figure out how they can move forward and how they can keep Madison’s ideals alive when they kind of forgot them for so long.”

We’ll see if they succeed or fail in that new mission when

Join our newsletter for free recipes, healthy living inspiration, and special offers.