Nick Clark (character)

Nicholas "Nick" Clark is a fictional character in the first four seasons of the television series Fear the Walking Dead portrayed by Frank Dillane, the son of noted actor Stephen Dillane. Created by Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson. Nick is the son of Steven and Madison Clark, the series main protagonist for the first four seasons. Nick is a flawed teenager who suffers from heroin addiction. This addiction often causes trouble for his family, who suffer because of this, his attempts to stop result in failure. During withdrawal he often spends time searching for drugs, even when it is not appropriate. This addiction can leave him to perform selfish acts, such as stealing morphine IV, endangering his life. However he can be selfless at times.

Character biography
Nick is quite intelligent and quick thinking, such as being the first member of the group to realize that the infected aren't infected, but rather dead, going as far as to prevent Alicia from visiting Matt, as he knew he would already be dead and attack her. Nick, as can be seen by his drug habit, suffers from an addictive personality.

Season 1
Nick awakens in a heroin den in an abandoned church, to find his girlfriend Gloria eating a corpse. While fleeing, he is hit by a car and hospitalized. The doctor tells Madison and Travis that Nick's claims about the incident are heroin hallucinations, but Travis believes Nick after visiting the church himself. Alicia becomes more worried about Nick's chemical dependency. The next day, school closes early due to the high levels of absenteeism and rumors of an epidemic. Nick escapes from the hospital and meets with Calvin, hoping to learn if the drugs Calvin sold him caused him to hallucinate in the church. Calvin tries to kill Nick to prevent him from exposing Calvin as a drug dealer or impugning the quality of his drugs. In the ensuing struggle, Calvin is mortally shot. After Travis and Madison arrive, the zombified Calvin attacks them. Nick runs over Calvin repeatedly with Travis' truck, and the three watch in disbelief as the mutilated Calvin is still able to turn his head towards them. The Clark family choose to flee to the desert. The group returns to Madison's home to gather supplies. Nick suffers from heroin withdrawal, so Madison drives to her school to get him Oxycodone. Travis tells Madison to take the kids to the desert without him; he will catch up. The Manawas and the Salazars later join up with the Clark's. All three families decide to stay the night and evacuate in the morning. The next morning, as the Clarks and Manawas start driving away, the National Guard arrives and quarantines the block. While Travis says, "It's going to get better," Daniel laments that it is, "too late," as he watches a guardsman mark the neighboring house. Days after the National Guard quarantines the neighborhood into a Safe Zone, residents try to live normally. Tensions build under the military rule. Madison is stressed by extra work caused by her home's being overcrowded and Travis' new role as civilian liaison. Nick steals morphine from Hector via IV drip. Soldiers take Griselda and Nick to a hospital, but Nick's family protests his departure. Liza agrees to go to assist the medical team, despite not wanting to leave her son. In a military cell, Strand bribes a guardsman to save feverish Nick from being moved. Strand recruits Nick for an escape plot. The group drives to the National Guard's headquarters to rescue Liza, Griselda, and Nick. Adams agrees to be their guide when let go by Travis. The group infiltrates the base after Daniel distracts the guards by leading a horde of walkers from the arena. Travis, Madison, Daniel, and Ofelia go inside, while Alicia and Chris stay behind. Meanwhile, the walkers breach the perimeter defenses and swarm the base. Travis' group reach the holding cells and set the detainees free before reuniting with Nick, Liza, and Strand. Adams shoots Ofelia in the arm. Enraged, Travis brutally beats Adams and leaves him for dead. Strand leads the group to his oceanside mansion, where he reveals to Nick that he owns a yacht which he plans to escape on, called the Abigail.

Season 2
The group evacuates to the Abigail as the military bombs Los Angeles, in an attempt to contain the outbreak. Out at sea, the group comes across another boat full of survivors, but Strand refuses to pick them up, Nick goes back to shore on the zodiac and brings back Madison, Travis, Chris, and the corpse of Liza, once they get on the Abigail everyone, but Strand stares afar at the burning Los Angeles as the military continues bombing their home. The following morning Strand informs the group they are heading to San Diego. The group docks on Catrina Island to escape pursuit of the unknown ship. Daniel and Ofelia stay behind on the boat to keep an eye on Strand, while Travis and the others investigate a house on the shore, which is inhabited by a family. They are greeted by the Geary family, Nick bonds with the children Harry and Willa. As Harry introduces Nick to his various toys he is made aware of "power pills" which is heavily implied to be poison. Concerned for the children's safety Nick goes into the house investigating and discovering the "power pills" which are indeed poison. Nick goes to Madison and Travis whom agree to take the children after their mother begs Madison, however after Willa consumes a pill she dies and reanimates and kills her mother. Nick, Madison, Travis, Alicia, along with Harry head aboard the Abigail much to Strand's protest, but Harry's older brother Seth forcefully gets Harry back and takes him back to the island where he kills his reanimated mother as a disturbed Nick watches as the Abigail leaves.

After an infected gets clogged in the Abigail, Nick, Alicia, Chris, and Daniel head ashore on the zodiac to get supplies from the crashed Flight 462 plane. While everyone is looking for supplies Nick finds a knife and some amoxicillin for Ofelia's injury. Nick wonders around and stumbles upon a pit with an infected with crabs on him stuck to the sand, Nick observes it, but falls in the pit, but kills the infected before another infected falls in the pit. Later as Daniel, Alicia. Chris, and survivor of the plane crash Alex fight a horde of the infected Nick arrives covered in infected blood and saves Alicia and gives the group a chance to escape. As Nick is about to leave him and an infected back face-to-face with each other as they observe each other. After the confrontation Nick heads to the zodiac with the rest and head back to the Abigail. Later that night Nick comes out ashore on a beach nude. Nicks puts on clothes from a plastic bag and heads to an abandoned refugee camp where he guts an infected and smears its blood all over his face and body. The following day Nick goes to a gated community with spray paint marks similar to El Sereno's marks where the infected ignore him as he's camouflaged, as he makes his way to a house where he's confronted at gun point by Luis Flores until he explains Strand sent him. As Luis loads his luggage in his car Luis explains that the gated community was an Abigail Home Experience as well that he'll be the one to get them across the border, but is taken aback when Nick indirectly mentions his family.

After Nick has washed himself off the blood and has new clothes Luis drives to the beach he tells Nick how long he's known Strand and that they're meeting his mother in Baja. They get on the zodiac and head to the Abigail, but Nick notices two unknown armed people: Ben and Breannah. Luis pulls out a rifle and kills them both. Once they're on board Nick is caught up with the events since he was gone.

Season 4
Two years after the explosion of the Gonzalez Dam, Nick along with Alicia and Strand have survived and reunited with Luciana sometime after the explosion. At the end of the episode, Althea, Morgan Jones, and John Dorie are ambushed by the four without the absence of his mother. A year previous, Madison, Nick, Alicia, Strand, and Luciana are a part of a community living in a baseball stadium. Nick is farming vegetables, but weevils are destroying them. Madison and others, excluding Nick, set out to find Charlie's family, a young girl in the community. Madison's group reaches a deserted town and they split up to search. Madison and Alicia find a burned down camp near giant oil tanks, which has a white flag with the number "457". Madison comes across a woman named Naomi and Madison invites her to their community. At night, a large convoy of trucks approach the stadium. Mel, the leader of a group known as the Vultures, rounds up walkers outside the stadium and into a truck; it is then labeled "12". Madison goes out to talk with Mel, and he tells Madison he knows of their weevil problem, thanks to Charlie who is revealed as a spy. Mel orders Madison to give them all their supplies or they will die from their lack of resources. Madison refuses and walks away. Catching up to the events of the previous episode: Luciana finds a flag marked "51" in Althea's SWAT truck, and Alicia orders them to take them to where they found the flag. In flashbacks, Nick and Madison go on a supply run, however when arrive, they discover that Mel's brother Ennis has already looted it. Charlie eavesdropped on Madison and obtained the location, giving it to Ennis. Nick pleads with Charlie to not listen to the Vultures. Nick then attacks Ennis with his knife, but Madison stops him from killing Ennis. Charlie goes with Ennis in his blue El Camino and they drove off. In the present, the SWAT vehicle swerves off the road and crashes after a commotion inside the vehicle between the two groups. Nick spots the blue El Camino and chases after it. The others find a service station which has a truck with wire cable, that they can use to tow the SWAT vehicle from the mud. Returning to the SWAT truck, they fight off various infected and successfully tow it. Nick finds Ennis at a farm and they fight inside a silo. Nick impales Ennis on a deer antler display, killing him. Nick is then shot by Charlie. The rest of the group arrives, where they try to revive him, but he dies. Alicia sobs and is left devastated.

Development and reception
Dillane has received positive reviews for his portrayal of Nick Clark. The third episode of season four features the death of Nick Clark, played by Frank Dillane. In an interview after the episode had aired, Dillane revealed he asked to leave the show prior to the fourth season. The actor explained:

""I had been doing it for three or four years, the show has undergone many changes in terms of different people in charge, all of this stuff, and I just felt like the beginning of this season kind of felt like the end of an era with this show. And television is hard work, and you have to shoot a lot. I also missed Europe very much. I'm not American, so after a while I get quite homesick and all of those things. I also felt like we had achieved what needed to be achieved in the first few seasons, so I thought it was time to keep moving.""