Sumith Prasad
The eighth episode of AMC’s post-apocalyptic series ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ season 8 startles the viewers with the return of Charlie, who nearly dies after getting bitten by a walker. She is revealed as an integral part of the community Luciana builds to support other survivors. When Madison Clark learns that Charlie killed her son Nicholas “Nick” Clark, she asks the girl to fulfill a dangerous mission for her. Although their well-wishers like Daniel Salazar stand against the same, Charlie accepts the life-threatening assignment to show Madison that she is sorry for killing Nick. Charlie’s fate is connected to Alexa Nisenson’s future in the series! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Charlie’s Sacrifice
Charlie kills herself after going to Troy Otto’s group. When Madison learns that Charlie killed Nick, she asks the girl to kill Troy for the former to forgive her. Charlie accepts the assignment and tries to find a place in Troy’s circle, only to get captured by him. He then threatens to kill the girl to garner PADRE’s location from Madison, who realizes that she shouldn’t have put Charlie’s life on the line by then. Madison joins Daniel and Luciana and together, they leave for Troy’s place. Madison offers to reveal PADRE’s location in return for Charlie.
However, Charlie doesn’t accept the deal. She knows that PADRE is the only hope left for her friends and allies. Charlie doesn’t want Troy to capture the safe place and turn against her loved ones. She then kills herself to stop Madison from giving up the location. “It really felt to us like Charlie would take this tragic, yet heroic course of action to ensure that Alicia and Nick’s memory could live on,” co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss told Decider about the decision to kill Charlie off.
Charlie’s sacrifice safeguards PADRE from the ill intentions of Troy, who wants to conquer the community to possibly control other survivor groups. When Madison realizes that Charlie gave up her own life for PADRE’s future, she continues to fight Troy to make him stay away from the safe place.
Alexa Nisenson’s Departure
Alexa Nisenson did leave ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ right after the conclusion of the seventh season of the post-apocalyptic drama. Still, Chambliss and co-showrunner Ian Goldberg wanted to end Charlie’s arc without any ambiguity, which paved the way for the actress’s temporary return. “We wanted to put a more definitive period at the end of Charlie’s story,” Chambliss said in the same Decider interview.
“It’s Charlie being confronted with the past… She had made peace with Alicia because of what she did to Nick, but she hasn’t made peace with Madison. And Madison is the one who brought her into the Stadium, who introduced her to this family. So, for Charlie, it feels like she has a lot of ground to make up for [with] Madison, and ultimately, she didn’t want to be the reason that Madison would lose that thing she was fighting for,” Chambliss added.
Although Alexa left the show, she may appear as Charlie in the flashback scenes, especially since the eighth season is filled with the same. Charlie can feature in Madison’s thoughts concerning Alicia Clark and Nick considering that the former has been an unignorable part in both of their lives. “[…] all of our characters’ pasts inform their stories in the back half of this season. So, in some way or other the major elements that have driven these characters will be acknowledged… In some way or another,” Goldberg added in the same interview.
Even though Alexa will be missed in the rest of the episodes of the show, admirers of the actress can await the release of ‘Discovering Dad,’ a podcast series in which she lends her voice to Jess, along with Adam Godley.
Read More: What Happened to Wendell? Did Daryl Mitchell Leave Fear the Walking Dead?
