Does Nick Die On Fear The Waking Dead?

For a time, "The Walking Dead" was the biggest show on cable. It was truly a juggernaut, and one that wasn't necessarily expected to become such a widespread hit. When it did, AMC was quick to capitalize on the success with a spin-off in the form of "Fear the Walking Dead." Debuting on the network in 2015, this show took us back to the very beginnings of the zombie outbreak in Los Angeles, centering on a new collection of characters.

"Fear the Walking Dead" ran for a full eight seasons, making it a wildly successful spin-off and paving the way for AMC to build out an entire universe that is still going strong today. While some of the characters from these shows lived on and were able to venture into different spin-offs, others weren't so lucky. Such was the case with Nick Clark (Frank Dillane), who was not only an important character but also one who met a rather dark fate in the show's fourth season.

So, what happened to Nick, exactly? Why was he so important within the larger "Walking Dead" universe? Why did Dillane leave the show? Was it his decision or the network's? We're going to go over all of this and more as we do a deep dive into Nick's death on "Fear the Walking Dead." Let's dive in.

Nick Clark was the first major main character we met in the pilot for "Fear the Walking Dead." That's the first thing that makes him stand out. More importantly, Nick was the first character in any of the shows to ever see a zombie, in terms of the overall canon timeline, even though the word "zombie" is never said in the "Walking Dead" universe. Call them walkers, call them whatever you want, Nick saw them before the world fell apart.

As far as his connections to other characters on the show are concerned, Nick was the son of Kim Dickens' Madison Clark and the brother of Alycia Debnam-Carey's Alicia. Nick was also a drug addict who struggled with his addiction mightily, even as the world began to fall to zombies around him. The Clark family was at the center of most of the show for its eighth-season run, right until the bitter end. Unfortunately, Nick wouldn't be joining his mother and sister on the entirety of their journey through the undead apocalypse.

Nick meets his untimely demise in "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 4, specifically the third episode (which is titled "Gone Out Here"). Nick's death is rather shocking as it comes at the hands of Charlie (Alexa Nisenson), who is not only just a young girl at the time, but she was also a friend of the Clark family. Earlier in the show, they tried to protect her from the apocalypse. Unfortunately, it's revealed that she is aligned with a brutal group of survivors known as the Vultures.

Charlie shoots Nick in the chest and he dies surrounded by his family. There are many shocking deaths in "Walking Dead" history, and this is definitely one of them. As for why Charlie did what she did? Well, Nick had previously killed Ennis (Evan Gamble), who was something of a father figure to Charlie. Hence, it was a bit of vengeance.

Audiences had a pretty strong response to Nick's death, so much so that Nisenson recognized it in the fandom, with some of the ire directed at her character. "A lot of fans were definitely angry, but I get it. I was really sad, too. I loved Frank so much and it was really sad to see him go, so I get where everybody was coming from," Nisenson explained at Walker Stalker Con Atlanta in 2019 (via Comicbook.com).

As for Dillane, he was very much at peace with Nick's passing, saying that it was "appropriate for the show" in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 after the episode aired. "This season, moving into it, it felt like the show was changing again. I didn't really have anything left," the actor added. Dillane also expressed gratitude for the reaction from viewers, who were sad to see Nick go:

"It really warms the cockles of my heart. I'm always touched and very moved knowing that Nick resonated with people. I just hope that I've done that character justice, and that I did justice for anyone else who has struggled with addiction. I'm very humbled to hear that people responded so well to Nick."

Other characters on "Fear the Walking Dead", such as Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Daniel (Ruben Blades), left and later returned to the show. Nick, save for some flashbacks in later episodes during Season 4, stayed dead and gone. But why was Nick killed off? Was it Dillane's decision? Or was it a creative one? In that same Hollywood Reporter interview from 2018, Dillane explained that he felt, as an actor, it was time for him to leave the role behind:

"I didn't have any new ideas for Nick. It just felt like it was time to move on. I wanted to start playing some new characters and do some more films. But I'm very sad to see Nick die."

Showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, who took over as the heads of the series during "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 4, also discussed Nick's death in an April 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Chambliss reaffirmed that it was Dillane's decision, with Nick's death becoming one of the first major creative challenges they had to overcome:

"Frank Dillane had asked the producers and AMC if he could leave the show, because he wanted to pursue other opportunities. One of the first things we were tasked with when we came on to run Season 4 was to find a story that would give Nick a fitting sendoff. He's been with the show from day one, so it was very important to us and to Frank to find a death for him that was emotional and one that would ripple forward throughout the storytelling."

As mentioned, Dillane never actually returned to "Fear the Walking Dead," but before the show's series finale aired, it did address Nick's death at the hands of Charlie. In the Season 8 episode "Iron Tiger," Madison comes face-to-face with Charlie, who is now 20 and was thought to be dead after dealing with radiation poisoning. (She was, in fact, very much alive.) Charlie grieved what she had done to Nick and apologized to Madison in the show. Ennis, you see, had unleashed the zombies that seemingly killed Madison earlier in the series before Kim Dickens made her return in Season 8. This is why Nick killed Ennis and what then led to Charlie killing Nick.

It's also revealed that Charlie helped Nick's girlfriend Luciana (Danay García) exhume Nick's body to give him a proper burial. Later, the character Troy Otto (Daniel Sharman) takes Charlie hostage in an attempt to get the location of the safe-zone PADRE from Madison. "I'm not gonna watch another place you built fall because of me," Charlie says before shooting herself, trying to make good on the sins of her past. In a 2023 interview with Comicbook.com, co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss explained the confrontation between these two:

"In thinking about Madison's story and all the things that she'd have to grapple with this season, we really wanted to put Charlie and Madison together. Charlie served as the ultimate test for Madison about how much she actually had changed. Could she forgive the person who killed her son? Ultimately, she was able to do that, although it was very messy in this episode, and it put Charlie in this very precarious position."

"I think from Charlie's point of view, she couldn't let Madison [give up PADRE] because Madison wouldn't be able to secure the thing that would allow Nick and Alicia's legacy to live on," Chambliss added. "That ultimately led to her decision to sacrifice herself. It felt fitting for Charlie to leave the show in that way."

Dillane left a steady job working on a big TV show with "Fear the Walking Dead" because, creatively, he wanted to explore other opportunities as an actor. That's a gamble, but one that has seemingly paid off for him in the years since departing AMC's hit post-apocalyptic series. Indeed, the actor has worked steadily in both TV and movies since leaving the role of Nick Clark behind, even if he hasn't found himself at the center of anything quite as massive.

Dillane's first role after leaving the show was in the 2018 horror film "Astral. He then went on to star in 2019's "How to Build a Girl" alongside Beanie Feldstein before appearing as Christophe in the Starz TV adaptation of Steven Soderbergh's film "The Girlfriend Experience," which aired in 2020. Also in the realm of prestige streaming television, Dillane played Dr. Luke Garrett in the Apple TV+ series "The Essex Serpent," sharing the screen with Claire Danes and Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston.

Most recently, Dillane starred in the crime series "Joan" alongside "Game of Thrones" alum Sophie Turner. As of this writing, the actor doesn't have any other projects listed as upcoming. However, he was also, at one point, the lead singer and bass player for the band Tinker Wright, so it's possible he's taking some time to focus on music or other creative endeavors.