Fear The Walking Dead Season 6 Has TWDs First Bounty Hunter

Fear The Walking Dead season 6 is on its way, and judging by the trailer looks set to introduce the franchise's first real bounty hunter.

Season 6 of Fear The Walking Dead will add a brand new feature to the zombie apocalypse - bounty hunters. When fans last saw the Fear The Walking Dead gang, their situation was looking typically bleak. Led by Morgan Jones, the survivors had been happily moving from camp to camp, helping anyone who needed assistance along the way. This was only possible with access to an oil refinery, but the facility was overrun by Virginia and the Pioneers, leaving Fear The Walking Dead's heroes out in the cold. After failing to find another home, the group were forced to assimilate with Virginia's people, and in a parting shot, the villain left Morgan for dead on the steps of a church.

A trailer for Fear The Walking Dead's upcoming sixth season dropped back in April, offering a glimpse at the future under Virginia's rule, and no one appears to be having fun. Morgan is limping towards a slow death, Strand and Alicia are being forced into an authoritarian society, masked creeps are lurking around, and John Dorie has given up shaving. The most interesting aspect of the trailer was the final shot, showing Morgan with eerie red eyes.

Another cut of the season 6 trailer was shown during Fear The Walking Dead's SDCC 2020 panel, this time adding a few new scenes. Virginia makes a call to a mysterious figure in a cowboy hat asking him to find out whether Morgan is alive or dead. The stranger assures Virginia she'll know soon enough and prepares a cardboard box for Morgan's head. This new antagonist represents new ground for The Walking Dead as a franchise. Virginia begins the conversation by saying she has a "job" for the character, and he appears to be out working alone, completely separate from the Pioneers. The entire exchange comes across like a business transaction, and it seems clear that this unnamed villain is a post-apocalyptic mercenary.

This is a rare first for the world of The Walking Dead. Combing back through the history of Robert Kirkman's original comic books, AMC's The Walking Dead series and the Fear The Walking Dead spin-off, characters have generally fallen into one of two categories - either they work as part of a larger group, or they strike out alone and live as nomadic hermits. This is true even of violent, villainous types who enjoy the misery of the zombie outbreak, such as Alpha and Simon of the Saviors. The main timeline of the Walking Dead universe has never fully introduced a character who has no community loyalty but takes assassination jobs from others, mostly because there aren't enough humans left to make bounty hunting a worthwhile business model, but also to emphasize how even evil folk recognize the need for teamwork.

Fear The Walking Dead's more recent seasons have struggled when it comes to differentiating from the main series. As the spin-off caught up to The Walking Dead's post-Savior timeline and incorporated a handful of crossover characters, the lines between the two shows became blurred, and Fear The Walking Dead season 5 was criticized accordingly. This new mercenary should help bring a much-needed fresh element to Fear The Walking Dead's upcoming run, and the question has to be asked - what sort of depraved and formidable individual would choose to be a bounty hunter in a world already overtaken by the dead?