[Warning: Here there be Walking Dead spoilers. If you’re not caught up, check out our breakdown of the best movie trailers of 2017.]
Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead gave us some quality time with characters we haven’t ever really connected with, like Aaron, who recently joined Maggie in the widow(er)s’ club. There were also a couple of Rick Grimes speeches, which just added to the feeling of boxes being checked on the old post-apocalyptic drama list. But, if you made it through and even hung around for Talking Dead, you picked up a possibly valuable bit of info—that is, which character will make their way from Alexandria to prequel territory.
Showrunner Scott Gimple joined Chris Hardwick, Melissa McBride, and Kevin Smith on the aftershow last night, where he read a statement about the plans to feature Lennie James’ Morgan on Fear The Walking Dead. Naturally, the announcement is going to affect some fans’ dead pools, but Gimple warns the character still “has a lot of story left” on the flagship series. It seems “Morgan’s arc on The Walking Dead season eight positioned him for the story on Fear.” The executive producer didn’t elaborate on how James will split his time up between the shows, instead stressing the need “to see Fear‘s world and characters through new yet familiar eyes.”
When the crossover was first announced, most bets were on Abraham popping up, owing to his Texas backstory and the fact that actor Michael Cudlitz had some free time now that his character had been liberated from his head. But now we know it’s going to be Morgan who will meet up with Madison and the remaining Los Angeles survivors. There’s no word on whether his son will join him in the prequel, but it would make sense, given the timeline.
Although The Walking Dead’s latest season premiere couldn’t match the ratings of previous outings, it’s obvious this decision was made to bolster the numbers on FTWD. The prequel had a crossover back in season two, when it brought Alex from the Flight 462 webseries into the mix. She quickly disappeared, though it doesn’t seem likely that Morgan will get the same treatment.