Alycia Debnam-Carey Is Leaving ‘Fear The Walking Dead’… For Now

After finally returning to Fear the Walking Dead from a lengthy absence just this past December, Alycia Debnam-Carey left Fear the Walking Dead for the foreseeable future with Season 7, Episode 15, titled “Amina”. However — and spoilers past this point — AMC confirmed to Decider that though this episode conclude’s her character Alicia Clark’s story for the moment, the way she departs from the show leaves open the possibility she can return.

In case you’re wondering how Alicia goes out (for now) on Fear, in the episode written by co-showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss, and directed by Michael Satrazemis, Alicia is grappling with both her ongoing sickness from a zombie bite, as well as the climactic events of the previous episode that left her and Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) trapped in a fire. When we pick up, Alicia is coming in and out of consciousness as the whole group tries to escape an impending smoke-cloud full of radiation by taking rafts to safety.

Instead, feverish, Alicia follows a little girl back to Strand’s Tower and rescues him. Surprising nobody except Alicia, the little girl turns out to be an imagined version of Alicia, from when she was little. In her fever, Alicia is trying to tell herself to embrace hope again. By episode’s end she’s sent Strand off alone on a raft, and collapses on the beach. Moments later, she wakes up, healthy and happy, and uses the one bullet she saved to kill herself, to instead kill a zombie. She heads off into the distance to go help other people.

The ending moment is purposefully ambiguous. Did Alicia die on the beach, moments after Strand left? Did she actually get better? Is she still in some sort of fever state, imagining she got up and walked away? As is, we won’t know when next week’s season finale, “Gone”, airs on AMC, because Debnam-Carey is gone from the series (in case we haven’t stressed that enough). And side-note, but that’s particularly frustrating for fans as this next episode reintroduces Alicia’s long-missing mother, Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) to the show.

Chambliss talked more about the episode — as well as Debnam-Carey’s departure — on an “Episode Insider” short that aired on AMC+ after the hour began streaming last Sunday, stating, “It was very difficult to write Alycia’s last episode, and to say goodbye to her both as a character, and then also say goodbye to Alycia Debnam-Carey as an actor, because she’s been such an integral part of the show from the beginning. But it’s something we’ve been working towards for a while, and something we’ve been working towards with Alycia.”

Chambliss also commented on the final moments with Alicia, which find her waking up and seeing a bird she thinks she’s rescued from Strand’s Tower, which might also be one of those metaphorical birds you hear so much about. “It’s open to interpretation whether or not that bird is really there, whether or not she freed a bird from the Tower, or whether that was all part of her subconscious,” Chambliss said. “And if it was, maybe this is just her subconscious trying to guide her, once again. And we really wanted to build this reawakening of Alicia where she has been through this incredible journey, and is now standing up, and is going to walking into her new world, with this new kind of strength… We see her walk off as a triumphant hero.”

So will Alicia be back in Season 8? AMC stopped short of confirming that Debnam-Carey is done as a series regular, though there are a few clues that point to a lengthier absence than the previous one. First, she’s the lead in the upcoming series Saint X, which is shooting in the Dominican Republic the same time as Fear Season 8. Second, Fear is moving production to Georgia for the eighth season, and with Alicia either lying unconscious on a beach or wandering around Texas (depending) it might take a while for her to shamble over to Savannah.

There’s also the consideration that Madison is essentially stepping in where Alicia left off, and we do know that Dickens will be a regular in Season 8. It seems reasonable to speculate that Dickens was brought back at least in part to keep a Clark family member as part of the cast.

Further putting a nail in that particular coffin, Debnam-Carey confirmed the exit on Instagram, and in a decidedly more definitive manner than AMC, stating that, “To my dearest @feartwd family, tonight marks the end of an extraordinary and life changing journey of playing Alicia Clark… I was 21 when we began this crazy journey but now at 28, after 7 years and 100 episodes, I decided it was time for me to move on as an actor and as a person… It is bittersweet, but it is time.”

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So in summation, is Alycia Debnam-Carey leaving Fear the Walking Dead? Yes. For now. After seven seasons, Debnam-Carey, and Alicia Clark, are gone from the show. But like Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) before her, and even — as it turned out — Madison Clark, she’s gone; but perhaps not forever.

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC, and streams a weekly early on AMC+.