Fear the Walking Dead (season 4)

The fourth season of Fear the Walking Dead, an American horror-drama television series on AMC, premiered on April 15, 2018, and comprises 16 episodes split into two eight-episode parts. The second half of the season premiered on August 12, 2018, and concluded on September 30, 2018. It is a companion series to The Walking Dead, and the season premiere contained the first crossover between the two series. The season features new showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian B. Goldberg, and the series also moved to a new filming location, Austin, Texas.

The season follows a dysfunctional family composed of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), her daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), her drug-addicted son Nick (Frank Dillane) and his lover Luciana Galvez (Danay García), along with Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) during the zombie apocalypse. The group finds safe haven inside a baseball stadium, but are threatened by a group of antagonistic survivors known as the Vultures. It also features several new characters including The Walking Dead's Morgan Jones (Lennie James), as well as characters Althea (Maggie Grace), John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt), and June (Jenna Elfman).

Main cast
The fourth season features nine actors receiving main cast billing status, with five returning from the third season, while four new cast members are introduced. Lennie James (who was a main cast member in The Walking Dead), moved to the main cast after his departure from The Walking Dead. Maggie Grace, Garret Dillahunt and Jenna Elfman were added to the main cast. This is the first season not to include Cliff Curtis, Mercedes Mason, Daniel Sharman, Sam Underwood, Dayton Callie, Rubén Blades and Lisandra Tena (since their first appearances), who were all credited as main cast members in previous seasons.
 * Kim Dickens as Madison Clark: An intelligent and domineering high school guidance counselor and the mother of Nick and Alicia.
 * Frank Dillane as Nick Clark: A brave and selfless recovering heroin addict, Madison's son, and Alicia's brother.
 * Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia Clark: The fiery yet compassionate daughter of Madison, and the sister of Nick.
 * Maggie Grace as Althea: A curious and tactical journalist who encounters Morgan and John.
 * Colman Domingo as Victor Strand: A smart and sophisticated conman-turned-businessman, who forms friendships with Nick and Madison.
 * Danay García as Luciana Galvez: A strong and cautious former member of the La Colonia community in Tijuana, Mexico, and Nick's girlfriend.
 * Garret Dillahunt as John Dorie: A lonesome and friendly police officer whom Morgan encounters.
 * Lennie James as Morgan Jones: A mentally unstable and ruthlessly pragmatic man, formerly a part of Rick Grimes' group on The Walking Dead, who encounters the core group of survivors.
 * Jenna Elfman as June: A kind and mysterious nurse whom Madison encounters.

Supporting cast

 * Kevin Zegers as Melvin: The antagonistic leader of the Vultures and the brother of Ennis.
 * Evan Gamble as Ennis: A member of the Vultures and the brother of Melvin.
 * Sebastian Sozzi as Cole: A resident of the community within the baseball stadium.
 * Rhoda Griffis as Vivian: A resident of the community within the baseball stadium and the wife of Douglas.
 * Alexa Nisenson as Charlie: A young girl who is a spy for the Vultures.
 * Kenneth Wayne Bradley as Douglas: A resident of the community within the baseball stadium and the husband of Vivian.
 * Aaron Stanford as Jim Brauer: A survivor who brews for a living.
 * Daryl Mitchell as Wendell: A wheelchair-bound man and the adoptive brother of Sarah.
 * Mo Collins as Sarah: The adoptive sister of Wendell and a former Marine.
 * Tonya Pinkins as Martha: A mysterious antagonistic woman who kills every survivor that tries to help someone else.

Guest cast

 * Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes: The main protagonist of The Walking Dead, Morgan's friend, and the leader of Alexandria, a Safe-Zone in Virginia.
 * Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier: Morgan's friend from Virginia who resides in the Kingdom.
 * Tom Payne as Paul "Jesus" Rovia: Morgan's friend from Virginia who resides in the Hilltop.
 * Stephen Henderson as Clayton aka "Polar Bear": A truck driver who left supplies for other survivors.

Production and writing
On April 14, 2017, AMC renewed the series for a 16-episode fourth season and announced that Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg would replace the departing Dave Erickson as showrunners. Production began in November 2017 in Austin, Texas. Michael E. Satrazemis, a director of photography for The Walking Dead and director of 12 episodes, joined Fear the Walking Dead as a directing-producer.

In November 2017, it was reported that Lennie James who portrays Morgan Jones on The Walking Dead would crossover and join the main cast in the fourth season. The fourth season also sees the additions of several new series regulars, played by Garret Dillahunt, Jenna Elfman, and Maggie Grace.

On April 21, 2018, Colman Domingo revealed that he would be directing the twelfth episode of this season.

The fourth season features a redesigned title sequence with new theme music. Each episode of the season has a different title card, and tells a story which will become apparent once the season is completed. The Hollywood Reporter reflected on the new intro, calling the new season, "a Western with zombies, very much by design."

Goldberg spoke of the season's narrative structure, which features multiple timelines:

""We're playing with the structure, depending on which story we're telling in the episode. What we find so exciting about telling stories across time is it allows for mystery and for finding characters in an emotional place and exploring how they came to be that way, and finding them in a very different emotional place in the flashback storyline — not only from a plot perspective of piecing it together, but also showing how people became who they are by charting them in the present and comparing it to where they've been in the past.""

The new showrunners also were inspired by Westerns; Chambliss stated, "It all started with the themes we set out at the beginning: isolation and community. Those themes run through a lot of classic Western stories." Visually, the season is inspired by John Ford and Sergio Leone's Westerns, using Once Upon a Time in the West as a template for directors. Chambliss said, "it's all about having wide shots, not moving the characters, but moving the characters within the frame. When we get to the editing room, it's really about slowing down the cutting pattern, and harkening back to that style of filmmaking. It does infuse the show with a different feel than what we've seen before. It's something that we're very excited for people to see."

The third episode of the season 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.""

Release
On March 15, 2018, it was announced that the season premiere and the season eight finale of The Walking Dead would be screened at AMC, Regal, and Cinemark theaters across the United States on April 15, the same day as the televised airing, for "Survival Sunday: The Walking Dead & Fear the Walking Dead". The episodes marked the first crossover between the two series. The cinema screening also included an extra half-hour of exclusive bonus content.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the fourth season has an approval rating of 81% based on 6 reviews, with an average rating of 6.86/10. The site's critical consensus is, "Fear the Walking Dead shuffles onward confidently in its fourth season with a bevy of horrifying set-pieces and heartbreaking twists, but some viewers may be dispirited by the series' constant reshuffling of its characters." TVLine reevaluated the series for its fourth season, giving it a "B+" grade. Reviewer Charlie Mason wrote, "it's gone from being an adequate stopgap between seasons of The Walking Dead to a show that's as good or arguably even better than the one from which it was spun off." He also praised the addition of Jenna Elfman and Garret Dillahunt and that season 4 has had several genuine surprises in its storytelling.

However, the decision to kill off lead character Madison Clark, portrayed by Kim Dickens, was met with intense criticism. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, television critic Maureen Ryan highlighted the character as "one of TV's — and cable's — rare mature female leads" and cited her "baffling" demise as an example of Hollywood's ageist practices, adding, "the fact that this decision comes from The Walking Dead franchise, which has come under fire for its treatment of women and people of color in the past, is even more depressing."