Fear The Walking Dead Just Gave Fans The Reunion They've Been Hoping For
In an episode that appeared to be leading up to Althea and Isabelle reuniting on a the roof of a bubonic plague-infested building, Fear the Walking Dead pulled an emotional bait-and-switch and instead reunited a pair of The Walking Dead characters that were last seen together during season 7 of the original series. As "Alaska" drew to a close, the long-missing Sherry saw a distress flare that Al sent up to ward off Isabelle, and when she sent out a message to see if anyone needed help, her husband Dwight was the one to respond. The final scene of the episode found the long-separated lovers embracing, and left viewers with a whole lot of questions about where Sherry has been all this time.
Those questions will be answered in due time, but for now, it's just heartening to have something good occur in The Walking Dead universe for a change. The last time viewers saw Sherry, she was fleeing Negan and the Saviors on TWD. At the time, she told Dwight that dying out in the walker-infested world would be preferable to remaining with the Saviors as one of Negan's wives. A lot has changed since then, especially for Dwight, who left the world of TWD behind to continue his search for his wife.
After more than a year of being separated (in show time), Dwight and Shelly are going to have a lot of catching up to do, but for now, fans can bask in the joy of seeing them back in each other's arms and happy for the moment, at least.
Dwight's growth as a character made it the right time for Shelly to arrive on Fear the Walking Dead
Before the apocalypse, Dwight was a good man, but his time with Negan led him down a dark path. As Negan's right-hand man, he became a killer — something he never wanted to be. Both he and Shelly had to work hard to break free of Negan's influence, and while viewers will have to wait and see what sort of journey Shelly has been on, Dwight's has played out across two shows.
The way FTWD showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg see it, Dwight's search for Shelly, and the way he selflessly helps Al on her quest to find Isabelle, prove that he has balanced the scales, karmically speaking. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chambliss explained, "It's almost like his karmic reward that he finds his wife. And we like that on a thematic level. And then just on a pure storytelling level, we thought if everyone's kind of investing in the idea of Al and Isabelle coming together again, they would never see that Sherry was just around the corner."
Chambliss was right. No one expected to see Shelly show up during "Alaska," and yet her sudden appearance didn't feel false. Instead, it was a genuinely surprising and meaningful reunion that paid off years of dedication on the part of fans.
What's next for Shelly and Dwight now that they've reunited?
Thankfully, Chambliss and Goldberg don't plan on making viewers wait long to see where Shelly's been and how she survived on her own after fleeing the Saviors. According to the showrunners' interview with EW, fans will have answers within the next two weeks. And no, they haven't forgotten about Shelly and Dwight's vow to ride off into the sunset together if they ever found their way back to each other again.
But before they address whether or not the couple will be hitting the road, the writers will give Shelly and Dwight some space to get to know each other as they are now, because they've both been on major journeys since they last saw one another. While teasing their next episode, Goldberg said, "Really what that episode is going to dig into is two people who love each other very much, who've also gone through their own journeys and evolutions apart from each other, and how that's going to affect their relationship going forward."
For now, fans can bask in the knowledge that at long last, Shelly and Dwight are together again.