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fictional character in the television series Fear the Walking Dead

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Travis Manawa is a fictional character in the television series Fear the Walking Dead portrayed by Cliff Curtis. He is a former English teacher who divorced from his wife Elizabeth Ortiz and had to deal with the resentment of his troubled son Chris. Travis later became engaged to guidance counselor Madison Clark and integrated himself into her family including her two children, Nick and Alicia.

Character biography

Travis is a good-natured man and loving father; a protective, pragmatic and resolute individual who holds a firm personal conviction and belief that everything can be fixed, one way or another. He has been described as "the one character who desperately tries to cling to his humanity, the one person who believes that there is always a way to repair something that is broken and that a corner will always be turned" and "a good man trying to do right by everyone in his life". He holds a strong belief that civilization will eventually be rebuilt.

Season 1

After Nick finds his girlfriend eating a corpse, he is hit by a car and hospitalized. Nick's claims about the incident are heroin hallucinations, but Travis believes Nick after visiting the church himself. Nick escapes from the hospital and meets with Calvin, hoping to learn if the drugs Calvin sold him caused him to hallucinate in the church. Calvin tries to kill Nick to prevent him from exposing Calvin as a drug dealer or impugning the quality of his drugs. In the ensuing struggle, Calvin is mortally shot. After Travis and Madison arrive, the zombified Calvin attacks them. Nick runs over Calvin repeatedly with Travis' truck, and the three watch in disbelief as the mutilated Calvin is still able to turn his head towards them. Nick, Madison, and Travis choose to flee to the desert. The group returns to Madison's home to gather supplies. Travis tells Madison to take the kids to the desert without him; he will catch up. The group inside the barbershop remains trapped, while the riot outside intensifies. While a riot rages outside, a mob sets fire to the store adjoining the barbershop, forcing the Salazars and Manawas to flee. The group reaches Travis' truck and escapes, but not before Griselda is injured by a collapsing scaffold. Unable to reach a hospital, the group drives to Madison's house, where Nick, Madison, and Alicia temporarily flee. Nick leads Madison and Alicia to the Trans' house next door, where they take a shotgun. Travis arrives and is attacked by Mr. Dawson, who is shot and killed by Daniel. All three families decide to stay the night and evacuate in the morning. Nurse Liza tends to Griselda's injured foot but notes that Griselda will die if not treated by a doctor. Ofelia tells Daniel they should flee with Travis, but Daniel insists his family can survive alone and will join his cousin later. The next morning, as the Clarks and Manawas start driving away, the National Guard arrives and quarantines the block. While Travis says, "It's going to get better," Daniel laments that it’s, "too late," as he watches a guardsman mark the neighboring house. Days after the National Guard quarantines the neighborhood into a Safe Zone, residents try to live normally. Tensions build under the military rule. Chris shows a video to Travis and Madison of a light signaling from the Dead Zone. Travis talks Doug into getting mental help. Liza medically helps neighbors. Travis learns that Doug has been hospitalized for his mental issues. Dr. Exner determines that Liza is not technically a nurse. Soldiers take Griselda and Nick to a hospital, but Nick's family protests his departure. Liza agrees to go to assist the medical team, despite not wanting to leave her son. Travis retreats to the roof and sees the signal from the Dead Zone. Seconds later, he sees and hears gunfire, followed by darkness. Chris is devastated that Liza left voluntarily to help at the hospital, but Travis promises to bring her back. Travis convinces Moyers' squad to take him to the hospital to check on his friends. While en route, Moyers encourages Travis to shoot a zombie, but Travis is emotionally unable to pull the trigger. The soldiers stop to assist another squad in a building infested by zombies, and most of those soldiers, including Moyers, are overcome. The few survivors flee and drop off Travis near the Safe Zone. Travis learns that Daniel tortured Adams into revealing what "Cobalt" means: in the morning, all civilians will be killed, and the guardsmen will evacuate the city. The group drives to the National Guard's headquarters to rescue Liza, Griselda, and Nick. Adams agrees to be their guide when let go by Travis. The group infiltrates the base after Daniel distracts the guards by leading a horde of walkers from the arena. Travis, Madison, Daniel, and Ofelia go inside, while Alicia and Chris stay behind. Meanwhile, the walkers breach the perimeter defenses and swarm the base. Travis' group reach the holding cells and set the detainees free before reuniting with Nick, Liza, and Strand. They try to escape through the medical ward, where they discover Dr. Exner has euthanized all of the patients. Dr. Exner tells them of an escape route before presumably committing suicide. Before they can escape, the group encounters Adams, who shoots Ofelia in the arm. Enraged, Travis brutally beats Adams and leaves him for dead. Strand leads the group to his oceanside mansion. On the beach, Liza reveals to Madison that she had been bitten during the escape. Liza pleads with Madison and Travis to euthanize her before she turns. Travis promises to protect Chris before shooting Liza.

Season 2

Travis, along with the rest of the group getting ready to get on Victor Strand's yacht The Abigail as we see Strand's home in flames with the infected as well as hearing explosions. Travis and Madison pack everything and prepare to leave the beach, he tries getting Chris (who is mourning his mother's death) on the zodiac, but says he's not leaving her, the infected soon appear and him and Madison grab nearby rocks and kill them. Nick arrives in the zodiac and gets onboard with Madison, Chris, and Liza's corpse. They head by to the Abigail and the group freezes in silence as they witness Los Angeles engulfed in flames as the military bombs their former home. The following day Travis checks on Chris who's in his room with his mother's corpse, but goes outside and sees the Abigail has comes across a raft of survivors, Alicia wants to help them, but Travis tells her to check the radio while he talks to Strand. Travis sees Madison and Strand arguing over him not wanting to stop the boat, Travis agrees with him as he informs them they're heading to San Diego. Travis and Madison argue over him agreeing with Strand's decision, but says his priorities are the protection of his family. Later that day everyone, but Strand have a burial at sea for Liza, Travis says some words before Chris angrily throws his mother's corpse overboard, Travis goes to Chris' room to comfort him, but Chris screams at him for shooting her before punching him.

Season 3

Travis along with Madison and Alicia are captured by soldiers and taken to a military compound led by Troy Otto, Travis is separated from Madison and Alicia and is taken to a storage room where people are being taken and executed for research, there he finds Nick with an injured Luciana Galvez. Travis goes to Nick and tells him that his mother's looking for him. They briefly catch before Troy comes up to him and asks about his ethnicity and whether his people dodged the outbreak or not, before he can leave Nick asks where his mother and sister, but Troy affirms they're fine. Travis asks that Luciana is dying and needs medical attention, but Troy says everyone dies there and tells Travis to take a seat, he refuses until he has a gun pointed at him. While Travis is sitting one of the men along with him: Steven tells him his women are in danger, Travis tells Steven he's causing attention, but he says he could get them out of there and just needs someone to watch his back and h's the only fit person left and he can get them out of there if he helps, but the guard men come in and take Travis, Nick, Luciana, Steven, and others. Travis witnesses people being executed, but remains emotionless. Travis then asks about the corpses outside, the hostile soldiers explain, but Travis berates them calling them sick and their research is pointless and laughs at them, but when of the soldiers; Willy decides to execute Nick, but Travis volunteers giving Steven, Nick, and Luciana time cut off their cuffs, Travis manages to attack them and escapes with the group. Outside, Steven, Nick, and Luciana go to the sewers, but Steven is killed by Willy and Travis is captured. Travis is taken to Troy who sends him to the pit. Travis is thrown in a pit with the infected, an enraged Travis kills them all, but Willy shoots open a fence releases more. Travis runs towards the infected and kills them. After he is reunited with Madison he tries attacking Troy, but is held back and sees the reunion of the Clarks. Later Madison and Travis back to leave while Troy's older brother, Jake tries persuading them to go to their ranch, but they refuse. In a brief moment Madison comforts and apologizes to Travis who is still in pain after the death of his son. As a herd breaks out Madison and Nick go with Troy while he escapes via helicopter with Alicia, Luciana, Jake, and Charlene as they both head to the ranch.

Later that night the helicopter is suddenly shot at six times, Travis is hit with the final bullet from the stomach and out the neck and starts bleeding out, Travis begins unbuckling his seatbelt realizing he will die much to Alicia's reluctance. Travis, not wanting to die, opens the helicopter door. Alicia unbuckles Travis, but sees a fatal open wound in his abdomen. Travis loses consciousness and falls to his death.

Travis appears in the final episode in Madison's dream sequence through framed pictures in her house. After Madison is dragged into Jeremiah Otto's grave, Travis appears briefly in an effort to pull her out. However he fails and she is dragged back under and later awakens.^[1]

Development and reception

The season three episode "The New Frontier" features the death of Travis Manawa in the opening scene.^[2][3][4][5]

Showrunner Dave Erickson explained the decision to kill off Travis:

"Travis is dead. I think what was important from the perspective of the audience as well as for the characters, it was something worse again in the fact that we thought we’ve achieved some level of safety. We thought we were going to be okay, and then out of nowhere in the random violence of the apocalypse, suddenly Travis is taken from us. And in his last action, he realizes how bad his wound is before Alicia does and he knows that life is seeping out of him and it’s only a matter of time before he dies, and he doesn’t want her to be responsible for putting him down. So when he knows his time is up, he goes for the door and he makes his way out with the intention of throwing himself out. We tried to address that later on because I think Alicia’s concern subsequent to the helicopter going down is, did he indeed die? Was there enough damage done to his brain to make sure he didn’t turn? Is he still wandering around out there? And Jake says the height was too much and I think that’s what we need to believe. The height from which he fell and the velocity and the violence of that is going to do enough trauma to his brain that he would die. So, Travis sadly is gone."^[6]

References