Fear the Walking Dead showrunners on big Sherry backstory reveal
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The Walking Dead Panel at New York Comic Con
Entertainment Weekly brings together the showrunners from all three TWD series—Angela Kang (The Walking Dead), Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (Fear the Walking Dead), Matt Negrete (The Walking Dead: World Beyond)—along with Chief Content Officer S
Warning: This article contains spoilers about Sunday’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead titled “Honey.”
Reunited and it feel so good. Or not. It seemed like a love story for the ages when former husband and wife Dwight and Sherry were tearfully reunited on Fear the Walking Dead two weeks ago, defying the odds by traversing over 1,500 miles (and between TV shows) to find each other.
But the second honeymoon on was short-lived, as we learned on Sunday’s episode titled “Honey.” First, Sherry allowed Dwight to be kidnapped by her new mask-wearing group of rebels who had left Virginia’s rule and were determined to take her down. Then, after getting Dwight to agree to turn on his friends who wanted not part of the assassination attempt, Shery locked him away with them — so that he did not have to go down that dark road. But Dwight escaped and then stopped Sherry from mowing down Ginny’s rangers with the SWAT van.
In the end, Dwight said he could not be with someone so consumed with revenge, and Sherry told him to leave because “you actually remind me of who you used to be before all of this,” leaving their love story in shambles.
But Fear showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss say this is not the last we will see of Sherry, and that Dwight’s former (and perhaps future?) love interest will continue to play a prominent role in season 6. They also took us inside all facets of the episode while giving us intel on what to expect next.
Ryan Green/AMC
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’re going to get into the Sherry stuff in a minute but where did the idea come from to bring Rollie back and a pretty temperamentally different Rollie.
IAN GOLDBERG: Well, there were a few factors behind the decision. Rollie in season 5 had a very important storyline with Dwight, where Dwight in episode 510, basically gave Rollie a choice. It started on a very adversarial place between the two of them, but Dwight had the chance to kill Rollie and he didn't, he let him go. And he told him, "Today's the day that you can stop being an a--hole, should you so choose." We left Rollie in that position, and we thought it would be interesting to bring him back and see how Dwight's decision to spare him and give him another chance has paid off for him.
Of course, the karmic beauty of it is that he's ended up with Sherry in this band of Outlaws that are trying to take down Virginia. And of course, Rollie’s motivated to take down Virginia because she killed his old buddy Logan in season 5. Just a lot of factors, and also seeing how Rollie and Sherry now have come together, and Dwight has come into the fold.
Does this group we meet here have anything to do with the graffiti artist we met looking for the key? Any connection?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: I will say, definitively, they do not. These really are the island of misfit toys — the rejects that Virginia has cast out, the people who weren't good enough for her communities. But yeah, they have nothing to do with the graffiti artists.
Let’s talk about the scene where they take back the SWAT van. I loved it because it was like an old western stagecoach robbery scene. Was that the inspiration for that?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: Yeah, it definitely was a stagecoach robbery, a train robbery. We wanted to get the SWAT van back, and we were trying to think of the coolest way to do it. As we were thinking about it, we struck on this idea of, really, the only way you can get in that thing when all the doors and hatches are locked is through the gun ports. Just this idea of having na initial attack leading the charge to try to draw the fire and really leaving the door open for Dwight to slip in.
It was fun to shoot. I was actually down there when we shot it and got to ride in the follow van next to [director Michael Satrazmeis] the whole time. He was directing with glee. And our crew's so good, they shot that in six hours.
So the big question of this episode for me is: Why is Sherry so intent on taking out Virginia? She’s been reunited with the love of her life, yet not even that can deter her from this course. And she ultimately chooses this mission over the love of her life. Why?
IAN GOLDBERG: I think what it's ultimately about for Sherry is unresolved anger and trauma from Negan, and what happened with her at the Sanctuary. She never got closure for all the trauma that she endured there. And so, she's still carrying that with her. Dwight has gotten some closure, both in his time on The Walking Dead and also in the transformative journey he's had since he came from Virginia to Texas. He exercised those demons, Sherry has not. That is ultimately, tragically, what keeps them apart by the end of the episode is until Sherry can find a way to mend that wound inside of her of what happened with Negan, she and Dwight her not going to be able to be together.
I always love to play what if. So what do you think happens if Sherry does not lock Dwight up and he goes out there with her to kill Virginia and then has those SWAT guns trained on the rangers? What happens in that scenario?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: I think if he doesn't have that moment to really think about what they're doing, he doesn't have Morgan and Al there as reminders of the journey he's taken since he came to Texas. I think he probably would have let Sherry pull those guns, or he may have done it himself. He and Sherry may have been in a better place, but I think that is probably not a good long-term solution for their relationship. Because I think Sherry would see Dwight turning back into the man he became at the sanctuary and that's the last thing she wants.
Ryan Green/AMC
Andrew, you mentioned last week we'd have shades of “Easy Street” in this episode. And then Dwight uses that torture tool that they used at the Sanctuary. How did you guys decide on the torture music?
IAN GOLDBERG: It was our fantastic music supervisors. They gave us some options and we liked that one. We liked tonally that it felt like a cousin of “Easy Street.” That was what we liked about it.
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: We did entertain for a little while using “Easy Street,” but it just felt like in the apocalypse, finding some form of media that had “Easy Street” on it would be next to impossible.
There’s no Spotify available?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: Yeah.
IAN GOLDBERG: Wifi is not great.
Althea tells Dwight “You found your way back to her. She’ll find her way back to you.” Will we be seeing Sherry again this season?
IAN GOLDBERG: Yes, we will. You'll be seeing a lot more Sherry this season.
So this is not just a one and done. She's not just poking her head in, saying hello, and then she's back out? She's part of this season?
IAN GOLDBERG: She is. I hesitate to say too much beyond that, other than to say she's going to be back and for several more episodes.
Is this group of Virginia defects that we met this episode still going to remain a big part of this season?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: Yep. This group, and Sherry's relationship to them, to Rollie, and how they remain adversaries to Virginia is going to play a big part as we continue to move forward.
As you guys were working on post-production, was it weird having the masks be such a big part of the episode with everything happening with corona in this country?
IAN GOLDBERG: Yeah, it was. It felt weirdly predictive. Like we had this crystal ball. But we got excited about that idea early on. I think for the same reason you mentioned, because it just felt like a throwback to old westerns, great train robbery, bandits. It just felt like a cool, modern riff on that.
At the end, we see the folks from the office building now with them. What’s next for this group? Are they all heading back to Morgan’s safe zone?
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: Yeah, they're going back to the town behind the dam wall and really, Morgan, Dwight and Al are looking at this small group as the beginnings of what hopefully will be a much larger settlement.
Okay, tease us up for what’s next on Fear? Andrew, you get to go first this week.
ANDREW CHAMBLISS: Season 5 saw Tank Town play a very important role in providing gas that still burns, and we will be going back there. We've mentioned before that we've looked at each of these episodes as little movies and we've looked to actual films for inspiration. We'll say this one is There Will Be Blood meets Fear the Walking Dead.
IAN GOLDBERG: There Will Be Walker Blood. The episode will focus on June, and we're going to be seeing a whole new dimension to June. It's going to put her head to head with Virginia. The other thing, the other character that we're going to be seeing for the first time this season that we're excited to bring back into the fold is Luciana, who we saw at Tank Town last season, heroically, working for Virginia for the sake of everyone else. We're going to see how that's evolved for her in the time sense.
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