Sifting through the fallout from the Fear the Walking Dead season 6 finale

After multiple warheads fell in the Fear the Walking Dead season 6 finale, the show is heading into uncharted territory in season 7.

The Fear the Walking Dead season 6 finale blew the roof off of the TWD Universe, what with multiple warheads crashing and out characters racing against time to find safety. The show has already been renewed for season 7, which will take it in bold new directions unlike anything seen before, but first there are some things that need to be sorted out.

Season 6 has been intense. After setting up a new group of survivors that combined with the original cast members from the first three seasons, the show’s fourth season saw the group struggling to survive together. In season 5 they found their groove, trying to live a noble life in the middle of a world gone mad. It was working, for a while, until their own kindness came back to haunt them when it led them to Virginia.

One of the key themes of the show has always been figuring out who you are and what you’re willing to risk in order to survive. Now that the landscape has changed, that theme will definitely return in season 7…if the group can make it out alive.

Before we close the book on season 6, let’s take a look at everything set up in the finale and how it all could tie into the upcoming season.

Fear the Walking Dead: Who Survives?

There are three things you need to know to survive a nuclear blast: You need to escape the initial heat blast and you need to avoid debris during the subsequent physical blast, but in the end it’s surviving the radiation left behind that’s tricky. Nuclear fallout doesn’t just go away, but rather embeds itself into porous surfaces and doesn’t leave. (Fans saw this during Grace’s introduction in season 5.)

In the 1950s, people were told to hide from nuclear blasts in fallout shelters, but if you didn’t have a fallout shelter handy, then getting to a place to avoid the heat and the blast was important: some things that would work are storm cellars (like Dwight and Sherry), study buildings (like Strand), sewer drains (June and John Dorie Sr.), in cars and under trucks (Grace and Morgan, and Rufus), or escaping completely in a helicopter like Sarah, Luciana, Daniel, Charlie, Wes and Rabbi Jacob. Only Alicia was in an actual bunker, which had been designed to withstand the blast.

Based on where these characters ended up, there’s every reason to believe that they survived the initial missile strike. However, surviving the radiation will be a big problem. There’s no escaping it. The only chance of survival is to get far, far away from it. With horses likely dead and radiation that would be attached to vehicles, there aren’t many options for getting out of dodge, but with survival on the line it’s the only option.