Jason Riley may be the saddest villain ever to grace Fear the Walking Dead, with an incredibly tragic backstory lending context to his villainy. When first introduced in Fear The Walking Dead season 6, Riley comes across like many other antagonists in the franchise. He is cruel, manipulative, menacing, ruthless, and cunning. As the story unfolds, Riley’s affiliation with Theodore “Teddy” Maddox’s doomsday cult only partially explains his single-minded and fanatical behavior. At the same time, Riley’s devotion to the cult is perplexing since his temperament is so different from Teddy’s. While Teddy often has a whimsical attitude towards his plans for mass destruction, Riley’s attitude is fervent and desperate.

After learning that Morgan Jones possesses the second key the cult needs to launch nuclear warheads from the USS Pennsylvania, Teddy takes a personal interest in the submarine and Riley begins hounding the main characters for the key. His connection to the submarine remains a mystery for some time until the webisode “Dead In The Water” reveals the full extent of his relationship with the ship, and its crew, and why Fear the Walking Dead‘s submarine key is worth fighting for. Riley’s backstory provides much-needed context for the sort of man he was before the apocalypse, how he came to join Teddy’s followers, and why he is so hellbent on destruction.

Riley’s Tragic Fear The Walking Dead Backstory Explained

FTWD: Dead In The Water’s tragic plot illustrates how Jason Riley became an antagonist in The Walking Dead. Serving as a Weapons Officer on the USS Pennsylvania, Riley safeguarded one of a pair of keys needed to launch nuclear missiles. As the apocalypse begins, several members of his crew become walkers, and Riley, along with only a handful of his crew mates, manages to escape the submarine without getting bitten. In the excitement, an easy detail to miss is the significance of Riley’s trepidation regarding his status as a new father. It’s this development arc, in particular, that makes Riley’s backstory so heartbreaking.

It’s revealed early on that his son had just been born, and Riley admits feeling he’d make a better Commanding Officer than a father. Later, Riley disobeys a direct order to fire missiles at Chicago because it would mean killing his wife and son. By the time he can contact his wife and verify they are okay, Riley is excited to reunite with his family and be a dad. Sadly, Riley can do nothing but listen on the phone as his wife and infant son are torn apart by walkers. Broken, Riley is all too ready to listen to Fear the Walking Dead villain Teddy and his talk about new beginnings.

Dead In The Water Reshapes Fear The Walking Dead Season 6’s Story

“Dead In The Water” reframes the events in Fear The Walking Dead season 6 by humanizing one of its central villains, Jason Riley. In doing so, it reaffirms a common theme throughout The Walking Dead. Characters like Teddy are cut from a unique, diabolical cloth, but most of the monsters in The Walking Dead are made as such. While this doesn’t excuse Riley’s actions, it definitely explains how he could fall for Theodore’s genocidal rhetoric. Together, Teddy and Riley serve as an interesting contrast for one another, where one is legitimately and irrevocably evil and the other is just another tragedy.