Fear the Walking Dead: Alicia’s survival depends on this one thing

Though it looked like it could be curtains for Alycia Debnam-Carey’s Alicia Clark on Fear the Walking Dead, there is hope if she can find this one thing.

It’s an amazing coincidence that HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl finished its run the week before Fear the Walking Dead fans met Grace and learned about the nuclear meltdown in episode 502. There are lots of lessons to be learned from the HBO series because it was based on something that actually happened, and when it comes to Alicia Clark’s fate on the show it’s clear that she has a chance of surviving radiation exposure if she can do this one thing in time.

Alicia’s quest to make things right with the kids was noble, to be sure, but perhaps a bit shortsighted given how many walkers there were and the possibility that some of them could be from the nuclear plant.

After getting blood in her mouth and being exposed to radiation, Alicia’s outlook for the future didn’t look very good at the end of “Still Standing.”

However, there is hope.

While there wasn’t much the workers at Chernobyl could have done to protect themselves from the fallout, the amount of radiation Alicia was exposed to is minor by comparison. If treated early, there’s every reason to believe she can survive.

According to the CDC, the treatment for radiation exposure is Potassium Iodide, a form of Iodine that counters the radiation by preventing the thyroid gland from absorbing it, because the thyroid glad is the most susceptible area of the body to radioactive iodine. Iodine pills were something that Emily Watson’s brilliant Dr. Ulana Khomyuk carried with her, and she even handed them out to people whom she knew had been exposed.

There’s every reason to believe that Grace has a supply of iodine pills in her truck, and if she can get them to Alicia then the effects of the radiation will be countered effectively.

Alicia’s window for treatment is shrinking rapidly, though, so she needs to reveal what happened to Morgan so that they can get help. Morgan probably needs a good dose of iodine himself, just to be safe.

Now fans of Fear the Walking Dead must wait to see what happens in the mid-season finale. Thankfully, though, when it comes to Alicia’s fate there is every reason to hold out hope because there is a cure. It’s just a matter of getting that treatment to Alicia in time.

The mid-season finale of Fear the Walking Dead is July 21, 2019.