Did Fear The Walking Dead Spoil Its Next Big Death Before Season 6 Even Started?

dwight and sherry finding june's shirt on fear the walking dead
(Image credit: amc press)

General spoilers below for the entirety of Season 6, so be warned if you aren't all caught up!

Just about anyone who's been watching Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 would probably agree that this is both one of the most powerful and most depressing seasons yet from any show in the Dead-verse. So far, we've witnessed the death of a major hero in Garret Dillahunt's John Dorie, a major villain in Colby Minifie's Virginia, a major unknown in Grace's baby Athena, and it definitely seems like more lethal atrocities are coming soon by way of John Glover's cult leader Teddy. (Especially now that we know he's been a wacko serial killer pursued by Keith Carradine's John Dorie Sr. for around four decades.) And some fans think that Austin Amelio's Dwight is the next victim.

As fans wait for the final two episodes of Season 6, a particularly interesting theory is making waves regarding who will be the next major Fear the Walking Dead character to get killed off, and it all ties back to the the set of character posters AMC released to get fans hyped for the season premiere back in October 2020. The promotional images were all close-ups on the various characters, and the main distinctive difference between the lot was that certain characters had tears on their faces, while others did not. At the time when the images were released, the tear details didn't seem to mean much, but looking back, they may very well have served as a spoiler-filled key to all the big Season 6 deaths. Take a look at the post below:

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To be clear, this Twitter user is not the original source of the Fear the Walking Dead poster theory, and the post doesn't include the poster of Karen David's Grace, who was also seen with a tear streaming down. Still, it gets the point across well enough, which is that the tears seen on the faces of Grace, Jenna Elfman's June, and Zoe Colletti's Dakota are very likely indicative of their mutually exclusive grief over losing those closest to them. While it's true that Dakota's love for her sister-mother Virginia had run cold by the time the latter got her head blown open, they had a long, mostly loving relationship that preceded the downfall, so it's not SO out of character for Dakota to cry about it. And I also understand that Grace technically didn't get to know her stillborn baby, the fantasy sequences in the episode "In Dreams" made her relationship with Athena feel genuine.

Which brings us to the odd woman out, as it were, with Christine Evangelista's Sherry as the only tearful character who hasn't yet suffered a really obvious personal tragedy on the level of a loved one's death. And what other character would possibly fit into those parameters beyond Dwight? Nobody, that's who. So if the poster theory does indeed hold water, Dwight had better do some hard and fast living in Episodes 615 and 616 before he gets set to that big renovated dam in the sky.

Had this theory been popularized earlier in Season 6, it might not have sparked such immediate assumptions that Dwight will be the next one to go, since Sherry spent their post-reunion period keeping him at bay and trying to work out her personal issues with Negan and Virginia. But now that they've clearly rekindled old feelings as a way of starting over, it just puts Dwight right in the show's crosshairs, whether we like it or not.

There's obviously a good chance that Dwight isn't going to get killed off before Season 6 wraps up, since poster tears are hardly concrete proof of anything. But then each of the other tear-marked posters wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. Which fate would you prefer? Let us know in the poll below!

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET, with new episodes streaming three days early on AMC+. While this zombie drama will soon draw to a close, the 2021 Summer TV schedule will soon bring The Walking Dead proper back into the fold for Season 11.

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Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.