Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Fear the Walking Dead season 8, episode 1.Fear the Walking Dead showrunner Andrew Chambliss explains why PADRE has an unusual naming scheme for the codenames given to their community members. The reintroduction of major characters in Fear the Walking Dead reveals everyone associated with PADRE has a codename correlating to the name of a bird. Mo is "Wren," Madison is "Lark," Morgan is "Nightingale," and Grace is "Heron."

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Chambliss explained the significance of PADRE using bird names as codenames in Fear the Walking Dead season 8. He explains the creative process behind choosing different names while hinting at how this choice reflects PADRE's true intentions. Check out what Chambliss had to say below:

Yeah, we kind of pulled a big list and then went through them and said like, 'Oh, that's cool. That's kind of dumb. Oh, God, Lennie [James] will kill us if we call him that!' So we kind of saved the ones we really liked and spread them out over the season. But really it was all about PADRE finding a way to strip everyone of their identity and make them a part of the community and have it be all about the community as opposed to people bringing all their individual wants and desires to this settlement. And we will learn there's actually some more reasoning behind it as we get a little bit deeper into the season.

What Is PADRE's Ultimate Goal?

Kim Dickens as Madison and PADRE in Fear The Walking Dead

The use of bird-associated codenames lines up with PADRE's agenda in Fear the Walking Dead season 8. The group kidnaps children and indoctrinates them into the ways of their community, ensuring they have no outside emotional attachments that could hinder PADRE's efforts to rebuild the world. By taking away people's ability to use their own names, PADRE enforces a detachment from self-identity they want to build their new world upon.

However, there are still many mysterious aspects to PADRE that hint at undiscovered, sinister goals lurking beneath the surface. PADRE is continually drawing blood from Madison, though it's unclear why they've been doing so for seven years. Secrets like Madison getting blood drawn may be why future episodes of Fear the Walking Dead will see core survivors fighting against PADRE and their forces.

While Fear the Walking Dead season 8, episode 1 ends with Mo returning to train for PADRE, she is questioning her loyalty to the group after meeting Madison, Morgan, and Grace. Perhaps Mo's storyline will unearth more secrets PADRE has been keeping, leading to the eventual fight against the group led by the show's core survivors. With Fear the Walking Dead season 8 just starting, there's no telling how many more unusual aspects or mysterious secrets PADRE still has.

Source: EW