Janis' death in Fear the Walking Dead season 6, episode 4, "The Key" is the show's saddest since season 3. Given that this is the zombie apocalypse, a lot of people die in Fear the Walking Dead as well as the rest of the Walking Dead franchise. It's a bygone conclusion that someone in each group - at some point down the line - will either get bitten by a zombie and turn or will be killed by an enemy. In Janis' case, it was, unfortunately, both reasons that struck her.

When Janis arrived at Lawton after Morgan's group was captured and split apart in season 5, she developed a romantic relationship with one of the rangers, Cameron. They both had their reservations about Virginia and her Pioneers - Janis' doubts were far more obvious since joining the group wasn't her idea - and so, she and Cameron planned to escape one day. Everything was going according to plan - they packed away food, water, and gasoline to fill a motorcycle Cameron had stashed far away - but before they could flee, Cameron was killed by an unknown assailant.

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Virginia wanted people in Lawton to feel safe so she had the investigation into Cameron's murder quickly resolved, which meant Janis was the scapegoat. And to punish her in the cruelest way possible, she had Janis placed outside the community and tied down, while zombies were attracted to her via music playing. John Dorie tried his hardest to acquit Janis and even save her from her execution - which was moved up - even going so far as to forgo his chance to see June again. Fear the Walking Dead packed so much emotion into Janis' death that it became one of the show's saddest ever.

Janis and Alicia in Fear the Walking Dead season 6

This time, it wasn't about a person who got unlucky and was bit, or someone who happened to be killed during a shootout, but rather it was a long, drawn out death that felt more real than the others. It's because she was a victim of a tyrant and that tyrant's faux justice system, in spite of how many years she survived and how much she had to endure. At that point, losing her brother Tom and then the only other person she loved, Cameron, Janis saw living life as burdensome. So she wanted her death to give someone else hope - in this case, John, who could've tried to run away but instead chose to stay back and fight.

Furthermore, Janis' death wasn't a shock killing, and she wasn't killed by her own actions; her death was built up to be as impactful as possible. It tied in multiple characters as well, showcasing the different sides to them - John, in particular, had to gripe with his newfound purpose as a ranger/police officer, confront his past and what his father did, and sacrifice the one thing he cherished the most: June. Sometimes fans can be disillusioned by all the senseless deaths in the Walking Dead universe - and since the zombie apocalypse is still raging, most of the deaths really are senseless - but here, Fear the Walking Dead succeeded in delivering an emotional blow with a supporting character.

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