AMC Needs To Kill Off One More 'Fear The Walking Dead' Character

The first half of Fear The Walking Dead's third season was actually really good. Shockingly good.

It blurred the lines between good and evil, and introduced a number of really interesting, complicated characters.

It also killed off a major character in a truly surprising way in the very beginning. Unfortunately, the show killed off the wrong character. It's become clear to me after the first eight episodes that the surviving parent, Madison Clark, is ruining Fear The Walking Dead. That may be blunt, but I think it's a hard truth the showrunners need to come to grips with.

Of course, I doubt AMC will kill off Madison so soon after killing off Travis. They seem determined, almost to the point of absurdity, to make her the hero of the show. This is a huge mistake. She's the worst-written character by far, and actor Kim Dickens simply can't keep up with the rest of the cast. Her Madison is wooden, expressionless and entirely unsympathetic. That may sound harsh, but I don't know how else to put it. Other than a couple of scenes where Madison actually did the smart thing, she spent Season 3 basically screwing up over and over again, destroying everything she touched.

She's arrogant, headstrong to a fault, and consistently makes the wrong decision. Dickens plays her as an unswervingly "tough" character, and the writers beat us over the head with this notion again and again. But she never actually earns that label. In fact, she bizarrely inserts herself in just about every situation, and the other characters just seem to endure her presence for some reason. She's like a worse Rick...like if you took Andrea and Rick and merged the two together. Randrea. Rickdrea. Andrick. Madison.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, showrunner Dave Erickson explained that Travis's death wasn't always supposed to happen when it did, but one of the positive things that came out of it was a renewed focus on other characters---specifically Madison.

"Kim is number one on the call sheet, and she's always been, in my mind, she's always been our lead and our anchor, Erickson said. "From a story perspective, the loss of Travis forced her to double down on the ranch and on this family."

"I mean, ultimately, we have 42 minutes an episode," Erickson said, "and you can only service so many characters on an ongoing basis, and so strictly in terms of story real estate, it meant that Madison had to step up as a character, but it also meant that she ended up taking on a lot more story."

In other words, the death of Travis was the direct cause of way more Madison this season. What a horrible outcome. Last season Madison did enough stupid things to earn her a spot next to Andrea as one of the most irritating characters in The Walking Dead universe. She turned on the hotel lights causing people from miles around to flock to their hideout. She barged into a gang-controlled warehouse to demand answers about Nick. She agreed to kidnap children from a family who was perfectly safe on their island until our heroes arrived. On and on and on her terrible decisions made her more and more unlikable.

Now in Season 3 she's backed the wrong group, supporting Troy and Jeremiah even when it became perfectly clear they were bad people. She "rescued" Alicia and caused dozens of people to die in the fallout from that horrible decision that she made without anyone else's input and never needed to do to begin with. She covered up Troy killing an entire family of people and lied to her own daughter about it. And yet over and over again the writers insist she's "tough."

Black Hat leader Qaletaqa Walker says she's "more of a man" than the Ottos simply because she stupidly returns to the reservation with Ofelia as her hostage. She could have been shot at any point, easily, but this somehow makes her more manly? (Setting aside what a stupid compliment this is to begin with.) Before Nick shoots him, Jeremiah is rambling about how she's more tough than he could ever imagine being, simply because she...I honestly don't know what makes her so tough. What makes her so tough?

Yeah, putting a spoon in Troy's eye was tough, but other than that? When she went out with the militia (because of reasons) and they stopped to kill some zombies, she hit one in the neck instead of the head and then almost died before being saved by the militiamen. But then they treat her like she's actually super tough...for almost getting killed...and needing to be saved?

What? Just because other characters keep saying someone is tough doesn't make it true.

The real kicker for me was Madison's terrible, third-person monologue to her children toward the end of last night's midseason finale. She describes herself as "a little girl" and tells the story of her childhood and abusive, drunken father. In third person! It was just so awful I couldn't tell whether to laugh or throw my remote at the TV. At least she didn't end it with "And that little girl...was me!"

The entire thing---this predictable, stupid, over-used backstory---was absurd. That she hadn't told her children before this; that she was a school counselor despite having killed her own father; that the stupid monologue was in third person! Gah! And none of it, in any way, gets her off the hook for backing a murderer and lying to her daughter about it. Just an atrocious moment of television and wholly avoidable if the showrunners wake up and realize that Madison is a terrible lead and needs to go.

I still think that Fear is better than The Walking Dead at this point, but Madison weakens that argument considerably.

No Madison, you're not nearly as tough as you, the writers, and all the other supporting characters make you out to be. No, Alicia had it right when she once again called her own mother out on her flimsy grasp on morality and common sense. Alicia is the strong female lead this show needs, not Madison, just like Nick needs to become the show's male lead rather than Travis. A brother/sister duo trying to figure out this crazy zombified world would be a great show, especially since both Alycia Debnam-Carey and Frank Dillane are far more enjoyable actors. (Ruben Blades is also terrific, but Daniel will always be less of a focus on this show, though I'm incredibly happy he's returned from the dead.)

I only have one real complaint about the first half of season 3 and it's Madison. The writers force her into scenes she has no place being in. There's no reason that she would be at the center of every decision, every plot, every major moment on the ranch when other people have been there longer and already have established leadership roles. Her incredibly stupid decision to rescue Alicia was also an incredibly lazy way for the writers to avoid a peace deal and force the final showdown.

And while it's great that she finally confronted Otto and told him to kill himself, it was ultimately Nick who did the dirty work. And it makes more sense for Nick anyways. Nick is the one who established a relationship with Jeremiah. He's the one who started looking up to him before he was ultimately betrayed. He's the one who dug up Walker's father's skull. Madison was just an extra in that drama.

The highly anticipated mid-season premiere of "Fear the Walking Dead" season three airs Sunday, September 10th at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT with two back-to-back episodes. In the mid-season premiere, "Minotaur," in the aftermath of the Clark family's actions, new leadership assumes control of the Ranch. Daniel assists Lola in the distribution of water. In the second episode, "The Diviner," with the Ranch dangerously low on resources, Madison and Walker leave in search of a solution. Nick and Alicia struggle to keep the peace.