Alycia Debnam-Carey On Surviving The Survivalists In Season 3 Of 'Fear The Walking Dead'

On the pay-TV series Fear The Walking Dead, the end of the world occurs a lot like falling asleep or falling in love: it happens very gradually, then it happens all at once.

And while the mothership series, The Walking Dead, shows what takes place after civilisation has succumbed to the zombie apocalypse, Fear The Walking Dead takes a more immersive — and one might say more interesting — approach by following one family as they come to realise the end is well and truly nigh.

The third season of the show, which premieres on Foxtel channel FX, reunites the family — Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis), Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and their teenage kids Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) — after events separated them in the second season.

But the reunion may be a little fraught, given that they find themselves sheltered by a community of survivalists whose preparations for doomsday never took into account the necessaries needed to fend off ravenous, roaming corpses.

"Well, she's killed a man, which is a massive thing for her to have to process."

"It's where this season unfolds, with this community of people who have been preparing for an apocalypse of some kind," says Australian actress Debnam-Carey. "It's a different spin on what we've gone through so far — we've been running from the apocalypse and encountering people who are doing the same but this time we're the people who have experienced what life is like on the outside and come into a sanctuary where people haven't experienced what is happening but are nevertheless prepared for the worst. It's a very interesting mix of the two groups."

If post-apocalyptic pop culture has taught us anything, it's that survivalist enclaves tend to have their own built-in dangers and psychological tensions. As Debnam-Carey points out, however, this particular scenario is wrought with some entirely unpredictable dangers.

"I don't want to spoil anything but something that I've found is that where our family goes, chaos tends to ensue," she says with a laugh. "And when you're lumped together with a group of people who are very protective of what they've built and who are prepared for the worst but at the same time unprepared for this kind of worst, it's definitely the case.

"It's also very, very relevant to the political situation in America — racial issues, territorial issues, issues involving those who have and those who don't."

Debnam-Carey is a believer in the idea that genre fiction can provide a stealthy insight into the way society operates and the way people behave under the darkest, direst circumstances. She says Fear The Walking Dead is a surprisingly incisive illustration of this.

"I was really drawn to that aspect of the show — the fall of society and how it might occur," she says. "The zombies are a side story; it's the people you're interested in. What they're willing to sacrifice, what they're willing to do to one another."

That's especially the case for Debnam-Carey's Alicia, a straight-A student and high achiever who has had "some pretty dark moments" since Fear The Walking Dead's story began.

"Well, she's killed a man, which is a massive thing for her to have to process," she says. "And she has to regularly re-evaluate what matters to her, who she can rely on — that includes herself. She's someone who had a plan, a very solid idea of what her future would be, and that is completely obliterated. She is having to reformulate who she is in this changing world."

Fear the Walking Dead returns to FX (through Foxtel) 5 Jun.