Sumith Prasad
The eighth season of AMC’s post-apocalyptic series ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ follows the aftermath of Morgan Jones’ arrival at PADRE to save Baby Mo with Madison Clark. Although Morgan initially wants to escape from the place with his daughter, he eventually lets Mo live at the place as Wren while he takes the job of a collector. For turning against him, PADRE locks Madison up and draws her blood regularly without providing a reason. The first episode of the season depicts the intricacies of PADRE and his civilization after a significant period from the conclusion of the seventh season. If you are intrigued about the same, let us share everything you need to know about it! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Time Jump Significance
The eighth season of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ begins seven years after the conclusion of the seventh season. Showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss wanted to use the same to depict life at PADRE in the best way possible. “We felt the best way to understand what it’s like to grow up as a child at PADRE, in a place where you’re kept from your family — […] — was to do it through the perspective of someone who actually grew up there,” Ian Goldberg told EW. “And the perfect character for that, of course, is Mo, who doesn’t even know that her real name is Mo until this episode. She’s grown up thinking she’s Wren,” he added.
Seven years, in particular, was the result of the calculation by Goldberg and Chambliss based on the ages of Baby Mo in season 7 and Zoey Merchant, who plays the grown-up Mo AKA Wren in the eighth round. “The number seven really was chosen based on Zoey Merchant’s age and how old baby Mo was at the end of season seven and kind of extrapolating from there,” Chambliss revealed to Insider. The time jump, however, wasn’t conceived just to focus on Mo/Wren. As the season progresses, we will see how other main characters have been affected by their time at PADRE.
“It [the time jump] just felt like the right lens to tell that story through. And also, it created a real rift and mystery about the rest of our characters, and it showed how life at PADRE had impacted all of them as well — both those who are still in each other’s orbits, and those who aren’t,” Goldberg said in the same EW interview. “But I think the big impetus for the time jump was just to show how much life at PADRE has impacted all of our characters and their way of existing in the world,” he further added. The aforementioned “impact” is evident in the eighth season premiere as we see Morgan as a collector of children for PADRE and Grace as a worker maintaining the region’s radio towers.
As far as ‘The Walking Dead’ universe is concerned, the time jump also has an additional significance. “It’s really hard to nail down the exact dates of everything. But, it’s safe to say that with this time jump, it really brings all of the ‘Fear’ characters very much into line with the timeline of the final season of ‘The Walking Dead’ and the concurrent ‘Walking Dead’ universe,” Chambliss added to Insider. “Lining up with ‘The Walking Dead’ timeline truly was kind of a — it is what it is, but that was not the reason we did it,” Goldberg clarified in the same Insider interview.
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