‘Fear the Walking Dead’ May Have Killed This Popular Fan Theory

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Fear the Walking Dead

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The Walking Dead passed the torch to Fear the Walking Dead last night, with Season 8 of the former show airing right before the latter’s Season 4 premiere. That handover was symbolized by Morgan’s (Lennie James) departure from The Walking Dead and arrival on the spinoff series, Fear the Walking Dead. But the Season 4 premiere did more than just introduce new cast members to Fear; it potentially destroyed one fan theory that’s been whispered about for a while now.

That theory has to do with Fear the Walking Dead lead Madison Clark (Kim Dickens). For a while now, Fear viewers have theorized that Madison is actually a character from the Walking Dead comics named Alpha. In the comics, Alpha is the ruthless leader of a band of antagonistic survivors known as The Whisperers. Their whole gruesome deal? Wearing the skin of zombies so as to disguise themselves and blend in with the walkers around them.

If Madison and the Fear cast are destined to become the Whisperers, the premiere episode doesn’t indicate that just yet. As Uproxx noticed, there’s nothing solid yet to tie Madison to the character of Alpha, or anyone else to the Whisperers. In the comics, Alpha is an intense, remorseless character with no affection for anyone. That’s not how anyone would describe Madison, and that’s still true as of last night’s premiere episode.

Could The Whisperers debut in Fear the Walking Dead, and could they potentially be characters we already know? Sure! We know that Fear is going to start crossing over with The Walking Dead, and the Whisperers are a big enough threat in the comics to justify having two shows devote time to them. But there’s yet to be any evidence that Madison is Alpha, and a lot would have to change in order to drive her over the edge.

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead air on AMC on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.

Where to stream Fear the Walking Dead