Fear The Walking Dead Has To Stop Killing Off New Characters
Warning: Spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead season 7, episode 9
Fear the Walking Dead needs to stop killing its new characters. The spinoff’s latest causality is also its newest character, Paul (Warren Snipe). Due to his efforts to help Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Paul met his end in the same episode in which he was introduced.
In Fear the Walking Dead season 7 episode 9, titled “Follow Me”, there was a certain feeling that the show might be laying the groundwork for Morgan’s group to get a new member. This possibility was even teased directly during Alicia’s talks with Paul, a lonely, deaf musician who offered her shelter while Arno was hunting her. Since the episode didn’t feature any other main characters until the very end when Morgan (Lennie James) showed up, “Follow Me” was mostly a team-up between Alicia and Paul. In the end, Alicia succeeded in outrunning the Stalkers, albeit at a great cost. Paul lost his life trying to make sure Alicia got away safely.
Paul’s death represents a problem with Fear the Walking Dead’s current direction. Over the last few seasons, the show has spent a lot of time introducing and developing new characters, only to kill them off before the end of their first episode. Paul certainly wasn’t the first Fear the Walking Dead character to share a fate like this, nor was he the first this season. Will received the same treatment in the season 7 premiere. Emile, Ed, and Isaac also stand as examples of characters that the show has devoted a significant amount of screen-time to before killing them off in their debut episodes. Their early deaths make their arcs seem rather pointless.
In most cases, these deaths occur as a result of a sacrifice made in the interest of saving a main character. These events serve as character-defining moments for people like Alicia and Morgan, but reusing this plot twist so many times makes it entirely too repetitive and predictable. As for the situation with Paul, all his references to Beethoven and the struggles he had with being deaf turned him into a unique and interesting addition to Fear the Walking Dead, but the show’s track record made it difficult to invest too much into his character. The same will be the case for any other new face that a Fear the Walking Dead character teams up with in the episodes to come.
The fates that befell Will, Isaac, Paul, and others are bad signs not only for the next person they cross paths with, but also for two of the new characters who debuted in Fear the Walking Dead season 7. Aisha Tyler’s Mickey and Demetrius Grosse’s Josiah managed to survive their first episodes, but it remains to be seen how long their luck can last. It won’t be a surprise if either meets a tragic fate the next time they appear.
Fear the Walking Dead releases new episodes on Sundays on AMC.