Fear the Walking Dead showrunners preview Dwight crossover

Get ready for Crossover 2.0.

Fear the Walking Dead made headlines when it beamed Lennie James’ Morgan over from The Walking Dead mothership for season 4. Now the show is adding another original recipe ingredient into the mix, as Austin Amelio’s Dwight will make the trip down south from Virginia to Texas in season 5 (which premiers June 2 on AMC).

Like Morgan, Dwight definitely has some sins to atone for, and his own journey plays right into season 5’s theme of redemption. We spoke with showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss to get some scoop on Dwight’s arrival, as well as what else we can expect in the new season. Not only that, but we have this nifty exclusive photo of Dwight below as well. Read on!

Fear the Walking Dead
Ryan Green/AMC

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What’s the story coming up in season 5 of Fear?
IAN GOLDBERG: We ended season 4 with our group coming together and rallying behind this shared mission of helping people out in the world, and that was a mission that we saw come together over the course of season 4 with people like Madison and Polar Bear. It was about seeing our group of characters come together, this unlikely family, and using those philosophies that Madison and Polar Bear began in their own ways and using them to go forward and to help people out in the world, both as a way to make up for the bad things that our characters had done, and also just a way to make the world a little bit better.

That’s where we left season 4, and when we come in in season 5 it is a couple months later, and we’re going to see how that help mission has been going for our group. We’re going to come in right in the middle of one of these help missions, and we’re going to see that the group has gone to some pretty extreme measures to carry out their goals to help someone in need. It’s going to take them to an entirely new and strange and dangerous environment that they’ve never been to before. It may involve a plane, and we’re going to see the difficulties that their mission presents, but also the internal things that our characters are dealing with that are maybe preventing them from fully living. That’s where we start the season, and those are the things that we’re going to be exploring.

Will this season be broken up into two eight-episode stories similar to season 4, where you had the Vultures in the first half and then the truck stop and boxes in the second half? Or is it more just one straight story?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: It’s a little of both, and what I mean by that is there is a definite story in the front half that we will see a conclusion for, but then it is going to spin our characters into a story for the back half in a way that is very different than we did in season 4. There’s going to be a through-line in the entire season in terms of our characters’ overall mission, but how it affects them and how it affects others, that is something that is going to change from the front half of the season to the back half of the season.

What can you say about the introduction of Dwight and how he’s going to factor into things?
GOLDBERG: We love Dwight. We love Austin Amelio. We’re huge fans of his character and his work on The Walking Dead. When we started to talk about bringing Dwight over, it started in the same place for us emotionally as when we were talking last season about Morgan, and that is: Emotionally, what’s the story we’re telling on a bigger scale this season?

This season is going to be about our characters grappling with the things they’ve done in their past and looking for redemption through the things they’re doing now, and for anyone who knows Dwight’s story on The Walking Dead, he is someone who did a lot of bad things over his time as a Savior. He hurt a lot of people, he did a lot of things he regrets, but he was given a second chance by Daryl at the end of season 8 when Daryl spared his life and sent him away and told him to find Sherry and to make it right. That’s the last we saw of Dwight on The Walking Dead, and we’re going to see how that’s been going for him and if he’s been able to achieve either of those things that Daryl told him to do.

Also read the showrunners dropping scoop on the return of Daniel Salazar, and for more Fear the Walking Dead follow Dalton on Twitter @DaltonRoss.

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