Some big names are making their way to Kingstown for Season 4, and we should all be getting excited. On the heels of Mayor of Kingstown’s senior season renewal and the announcement that production had started, major casting news has been revealed. Edie Falco, Laura Benanti and Lennie James are all joining the cast of this Paramount+ show, and I think the Nurse Jackie star’s role has the potential to address a major cliffhanger from last season.

Edie Falco Is Going To Play A New Warden In Kingstown

Jeremy Renner might lead Mayor of Kingstown, but some heavy hitters are coming to play in this next season. This includes Edie Falco, who has been cast as Nina Hobbs, the new warden at Anchor Bay. I cannot even begin to stress how big of a deal this is.

At the end of Kingstown Season 3, the warden, Kareem died. That left a major hole in the power structures of this prison town, and it left me wondering what would happen to the prison next. Falco coming in to lead this place is such an interesting choice, because I assume her character will have no previous ties to Mike since we've never heard of her before. Plus, I feel like she will have the potential to bring a totally new energy to the show.

Not only will her role likely address the cliffhanger regarding Kareem’s death, but it will also introduce a new dynamic in the town as Jeremy Renner’s Mike figures out how to work with her. Overall, I can’t wait to see how this plays out, and I think The Sopranos star has the potential to play a deeply impactful and entertaining character that could give our Mayor a run for his money.

However, she’s not the only exciting new face you’ll be seeing when you tune back in for new episodes with a Paramount+ subscription…

Laura Benanti And Lennie James Have Also Been Cast In Season 4 Of Mayor Of Kingstown

So many fantastic actors have joined Taylor Sheridan’s shows, and Mayor of Kingstown’s cast is no exception. With Jeremy Renner leading, the cast has also featured actors like Aiden Gillen – who played the big bad Milo – and Kyle Chandler – who played Renner’s on-screen brother. Now, the addition of Falco and Laura Benanti as series regulars and Lennie James having a series-long arc shows that this cast is one-upping itself again.

While Falco is set to play a warden, Lennie James will play a legendary gangster from Detroit named Frank Moses. That has me wondering if he’ll have ties to Bunny…or maybe he’ll be an entirely new challenge in Kingstown. No matter what though, I cannot wait to see The Walking Dead actor playing a big part in this series.

Adding to that, Laura Benanti is set to portray Cindy Stephens. She is a correctional officer who gets recruited to Kingstown. If you remember, during Season 3, there was a push to make the town and specifically its law enforcement and prisons less corrupt. I can’t help but wonder if the Life & Beth actress will play a part in that.

Overall, all this casting is thrilling because it's bound to cause big shifts in Renner's town. And it has me hoping that Season 4 of Mayor of Kingstown premieres on the 2025 TV schedule, so we can see how these three address some of Season 3’s cliffhangers and fit into the ever-changing and fragile power structures of this town.

Warning! Spoilers ahead! 

AMC's massive hit The Walking Dead established earlier on that anything could happen at any time, including the worst. Still, a number of characters made it quite a long time. While none of the cast members on the show appeared in all 177 episodes of the show, here are the actors who appeared in the most episodes of The Walking Dead. 

Norman Reedus (175 Episodes)

Daryl Dixon, played by Norman Reedus, was a fan favorite almost from the very beginning, and by the end of the show, he was hands down the most popular character. Reedus was amazing as the gruff, tough-as-nails survivor and he appeared in more episodes than any other actor, 175 in total. He also returned in the follow-up show The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.

Melissa McBride (174 Episodes)

The character on The Walking Dead that had the most incredible character arc has to be Carol played by Melissa McBride. Carol was a fairly meek housewife to an abusive husband. She didn't stay the way and by the end of the show's run, and McBride's 175 episodes, she was someone you definitely wanted to have on your side against the zombies. 

Lauren Cohan (144 Episodes)

It's hard to believe that viewers didn't meet Maggie Greene Rhee until the second season when the survivors reached the farm. Still, actress Lauren Cohan appeared in the third-most episodes by the end, 144 in total. Though she had one of the most tragic story arcs, she comes out on top at the very end, proving how tough she really was.  

Christian Serratos (130 Episodes)

Fans of The Walking Dead aren't introduced to Rosalita, played by Christian Serratos, until Season 4 and Serratos didn't become a main cast member until the following season. From then on though, she becomes a key survivor right up until the very end when she becomes the final victim of the zombies on the show, after 130 episodes.

Josh McDermitt (130 Episodes)

Josh McDermitt's character, Eugene, is one of the most interesting characters on the show. At first, he's weak, selfish, and spineless, but he eventually grows into one of the most capable survivors on the show, using his smarts to help out in many ways. 

Danai Gurira (126 Episodes)

From the first time viewers see Michonne, played by Danai Gurira, until the end of the show, she was among the most beloved and awesome characters. Though she wasn't introduced until the end of Season 2, Gurira appeared in 126 episodes over the final 10 seasons. And she wasn't someone you ever wanted to mess with.

Seth Gilliam (125 Episodes)

Former cast member of The Wire Seth Gilliam plays one of the more controversial characters, the priest Gabriel Stokes. Though he didn't join the show until Season 5, he played a huge role, both good and bad, with the survivors over the final seven seasons. 

Andrew Lincoln (121 Episodes)

If there is a main character of The Walking Dead, at least in the first nine seasons, it's Rick Grimes, played by Andrew Lincoln. He's the de facto leader at almost every point in the show, and the father of two kids. At the end of Season 9 Grimes disappears and at the end of Season 11 it's revealed he's still alive, but only a little is revealed about where he ends up until the follow-up show, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

Ross Marquand (116 Episodes)

Audiences first meet Ross Marquand's character Aaron when he recruits the survivors to join the community he's a part of in Alexandria. From Season 5, when he is introduced, until the end of the show, Aaron is a key character who appeared in a total of 116 episodes. 

Chandler Riggs (109 Episodes)

Carl Grimes was, other than his infant sister, the youngest member of the group of main survivors. Rick's son, played by Chandler Riggs, was a key character in both the TV and in the comic books, though his run on the show ended before the character's arc is over in the comic books. Riggs left the show in dramatic fashion after 109 episodes to attend college. 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (95 Episodes)

The Walking Dead became known for introducing a big baddie in every season, but no one was ready for Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. As the leader of The Saviors, Negan is absolutely brutal, and within minutes of meeting him, he commits the two most horrific murders in the show's entire history. His character arc is fascinating, however, and it meant he lasted 95 episodes, right up until the end. 

Alanna Masterson (87 Episodes)

Tara Chambler, played by actress Alanna Masterson, starts out as a follower of the antagonist known as The Governor but soon realizes he's a bad person. During the attack on the prison by the survivors, Tara switches sides and ends up an important member of the survivors before she is attacked and killed in Season 9, after appearing in 87 episodes. 

Khary Payton (83 Episodes)

Khary Payton introduction as King Ezekiel in the seventh season was a big moment. Not only did was it a dramatic shot, with him sitting with his tiger, but it brought in a character that would become a key player over the next 83 episodes. 

Steven Yeun (81 Episodes)

The Walking Dead was famous for the brutal deaths of some of its most beloved characters and at the top of that list is Glenn's horrifying death at the hands of Nega in the Season 7 premiere. It was hard to stomach, and even harder to take, emotionally. Actor Steven Yeun's character was a fan favorite and after 81 episodes, suddenly he was gone. 

Cooper Andrews (81 Episodes)

Actor Cooper Andrews' character Jerry is the kind of character everyone loves. He's a bit of a goof, but dedicated and loyal to his people, and very capable. Though the character wasn't introduced until Season 8 and wasn't a main cast member until 10, Andrews still appeared in 81 episodes. 

Sonequa Martin-Green (70 Episodes)

Sasha, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, who appeared in 70 episodes was a character created for the show, rather than in the comic book from which The Walking Dead was adapted. Still, Sasha becomes an incredibly important character from Season 3 when we meet her until her heroic death at the end of Season 8.

Eleanor Matsuura (58 Episodes)

Eleanor Matsuura, who plays Yumiko, is a late joiner to the cast, not appearing until the 9th Season. Still, she proves her worth quickly and appears in almost every episode from there out, a total of 58. 

Nadia Hilker (56 Episodes)

One of the new characters introduced in Season 9 is Magna, played by actress Nadia Hilker. She's a tough customer who seemingly trusts very few people, and who can blame her after surviving the zombie apocalypse for as long as she has. She also survives the final battle in Alexandria at the of Season 11 and is seen living happily with her girlfriend, Yumiko, after 56 episodes on the show. 

Lauren Ridloff (56 Episodes)

Along with Magna and Yumiko, Lauren Ridloff's character Connie is a tough survivor who joined the show in Season 9. Like those characters Connie appears in most of the final three seasons, a total of 56 episodes. 

Callan McAuliffe (55 Episodes)

 Alden, played by Callan McAuliffe, was a member of the brutal Saviors when viewers met him, but he eventually switches sides and teams up with the Hilltop Community led by Maggie. In all, he ended up in most of the final shows in the final 4 seasons, a total of 55 episodes. 

Cassady McClincy Zhang (54 Episodes)

Lydia is a character who is quite different in the show than she is in the comics, mostly due to the changed story arc of her love interest in the books, Carl Grimes. In the show, she is introduced in Season 9 when she is taken captive by Michonne and Daryl. She ends the series alive, 54 episodes later. She was played by Cassady McClincy Zhang.

Cailey Fleming (53 Episodes)

The youngest member of the main cast was Cailey Fleming, who played the older Judith Grimes in seasons 10 and 11, a total of 53 episodes. Of course, the character appears in way more episodes going back to the very beginnings of the show, but for years, she was a baby, presumably played by different people and definitely not played by Fleming.

Lennie James (52 Episodes)

Morgan, played by Lennie James, is one of the earliest characters viewers meet in the show, though he remains an enigma and only occasionally appeared in the early days. James became a main character in Season 6, and in total appeared in 52 episodes over the first 8 seasons of the show before he leaves the group. The character became the protagonist in the first spinoff, Fear The Walking Dead. 

Emily Kinney (50 Episodes)

Emily Kinney played Beth Greene in 50 episodes of The Walking Dead. She was Herschel's daughter and Maggie's half-sister. She was introduced on the show when Rick and the rest of the survivors got to the Greene farm. Initially, Kinney had a much smaller role than those of her family members, but by Season 4 she had become a full-time cast member. It wasn't for long though, as Beth was killed by Dawn in one heck of a disastrous moment that also saw Daryl kill Dawn. 

Katelyn Nacon (50 Episodes)

The second-to-last episode of Season 10 of The Walking Dead is a brutal one. The mysterious character called Alpha proves to be a brutal baddie when it's revealed that her people, The Whispers, have killed a number of people, including Enid, played by Katelyn Nacon. Nacon portrayed Enid in 50 episodes, starting in Season 5. 

Tom Payne (45 Episodes)

The Hilltop Community becomes one of the most important settlements in the post-apocalyptic world and viewers of the show, and the core survivors, are introduced to it by Paul "Jesus" Rovia, who was played by Tom Payne for 45 episodes, starting in Season 7. Jesus is both a spy and an ambassador of sorts for the Hilltop folks, who ends up recruiting and fighting with Rick and the others against The Saviors. Sadly, he doesn't make it past Season 9 when he is killed by The Whisperers. 

Michael Cudlitz (38 Episodes)

What can we say about Abraham Ford? Played by the great Michael Cudlitz who first found major fame on TV as a member of the cast of Band of Brothers, Abraham was a fan favorite from the first time viewers met him in Season 4. That made his death in the Season 7 premiere, after starring in 38 Episodes, at the hands of Negan incredibly heartbreaking. 

Scott Wilson (38 Episodes)

Everyone loves their grandfather and in a way, that's who Scott Wilson's character Herschel Greene represented on the show. The patriarch of Maggie and Beth's family, Herschel is tough, he's fair, and he's righteous. Introduced on the farm in Season 2, Herschel is killed by The Governor in Season 4, after appearing in 38 episodes. 

Austin Amelio (36 Episodes)

Dwight, played by Austin Amelio, always seemed like a reluctant, if brutal, member of Negan's group, The Saviors. With his badly scarred face, he was a standout character for 36 episodes before Amelio left The Walking Dead to join the spinoff Fear The Walking Dead. 

Kerry Cahill (36 Episodes)

For a character that appeared in 36 Episodes of the show, Dianne, played by Kerry Cahill, is the least developed on this list. Cahill is first seen in The Kingdom, playing one of the community's best soldiers, a skill she later takes to the Hilltop Community. For the rest of the series, she is part of many battles, but we never learn too much about her. 

Sarah Wayne Callies (35 Episodes)

Sarah Wayne Callies plays Lori Grimes, Rick's wife, and mother to Carl and Judith. In the first three seasons, she's one of the most important characters on the show and gets herself stuck in a love triangle between Rick, whom she believed was dead, and Rick's best friend, Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal). During Season 3, Lori is forced to give birth to Judith via C-section, and without proper medical facilities, the procedure kills her in one of the hardest moments of the show to watch. In total, Callies appeared in 35 episodes.

Laurie Holden (35 Episodes)

Actor Laurie Holden is one of the original cast members of the show, playing Andrea from the earliest episodes. At the end of Season 2, she gets separated from the rest of the survivors at the farm and is saved by Michonne. Both end up at Woodbury with The Governor, who Andrea grows close to. Trusting him was a mistake as she is eventually taken prisoner by him which leads to her death at the hands of a walker towards the end of Season 3 after 35 appearances. 

Fear the Walking Dead has officially kicked off its eighth and final season in the 2023 TV schedule with the premiere that revealed the new status quo after the seven-year time jump that had been previewed. The premiere took the show into what could be a new era, despite only a limited number of episodes left. It also delivered some twists for Morgan, who has appeared across the Walking Dead franchise going back to the beginning of the original series. Actor Lennie James opened up about playing the character for over a decade, and why it’s “utterly ridiculous.”

Season 8 (with new episodes premiering on AMC and available streaming) in 2023 marks 13 years since Lennie James debuted as Morgan jones on The Walking Dead, and he has already been credited in more than 100 episodes of the franchise without being killed off. When he spoke with CinemaBlend earlier this year at SCAD TVfest in Atlanta, I asked the star about his experience playing Morgan’s unlikely survival story going back to the original show in 2010. He shared: 

As fans of The Walking Dead will remember, Morgan did indeed appear in the series premiere with no indication that he’d return after fulfilling his purpose of sending Rick to the next stage of his zombie apocalypse journey. He popped back up for a single episode of Season 3, made a few contributions in Season 5, and then started a longer run in Season 6. Frank Darabont developed the series, but was only on board as showrunner for the first season, so Lennie James only had one episode to work with him. The star continued addressing Morgan originally only having one episode:

Back in Season 1 (which we rank as the best of the whole series), there was no way that anybody could know that The Walking Dead would be so massive for AMC that it would expand to not only one spinoff, but several! Morgan didn’t make his Fear the Walking Dead debut until 2018, and has been a direct connection between the parent series and its first spinoff. Between that and how long Morgan has lasted without being killed off, he’s truly one of a kind in this franchise. 

Of course, there’s no saying what the future holds for Morgan in the eighth and final season of Fear the Walking Dead, and his streak of not being killed off despite – to quote Lennie James – ”ridiculous” odds against him could come to an end. For now, we can only wait, see, and hope that the future isn’t quite as bleak as it seemed in ways after the seven-year time jump. 

Keep tuning in to AMC on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET for new episodes of Fear the Walking Dead, and revisit earlier seasons of Lennie James as Morgan Jones with The Walking Dead’s spinoff available streaming with a Hulu subscription. Also, keep up on the upcoming Walking Dead TV shows and movies with our guide!

While many TV shows might think of a nuclear disaster as an endgame idea, Fear the Walking Dead said "Hold my radioactive beer," with its bombshell of a Season 6 finale. And it looks like Season 7 will start off by making the aftermath a bit more personal than what city-scale catastrophes allow for, and it'll come in the form of an idealism-related enmity between Lennie James' Morgan Jones and Colman Domingo's Victor Strand, as indicated by the new trailer seen above.

For a while there, everything with Strand seemed to be hunky dory — not one of John Dorie's ancestors, to be sure — but after unexpectedly surviving the nuclear apocalypse set forth by John Glover's now-decimated serial killer Teddy, Strand has a new-ish outlook on life where he's decided to live as his true self, as opposed to the dependable leader others have tried to make him. Which basically means he's morphing back into an untrustworthy villain, but with the caveat that a lot of viewers will probably take the fan-favorite character's side in this debate, simply because Colman Domingo is a boss.

On the flip side is Morgan, who was similarly ready to reach the great beyond in Season 6 with Karen David's Grace. At least until they both heard the sounds of a crying baby, which snapped them back into "survive or nothing" mode. (And somehow didn't draw a billion walkers.) While Morgan doesn't always have his own best interests in mind, he's definitely known for protecting others, so it should be very interesting to see how his efforts clash with Strand's in the new season. And to see whether or not it involves the wrestling/boxing ring that pops up in the trailer.

There are, of course, lots of other mysterious and noteworthy things happening in the trailer in quick fashion beneath the increasingly stressful exchange between Strand and Morgan, which seemingly adds that much more importance to the two characters going into antagonistic mode for Season 7. Just in case anyone think that this is just a trailer conceit, and won't be a driving force behind the upcoming episodes, note that Fear the Walking Dead's newest key art imagery also plays into that particular feud.

Let's talk about a few other highlights from the Season 7 trailer. The shadows out on the outside of the nuclear submarine are reminiscent of the silhouette lovers that pop up in Watchmen. It's unclear if that half-hashtag symbol on the board holding the walkers back is important or not, but I'm betting it is. Morgan and Grace outside one of the CRM helicopters! Whoever this new villainous group is, they apparently take Dwight and Sherry hostage. But are the villains the ones wearing those bloody bandages on their faces, or are those other survivors? And what do they want? WHAT DO THEY WANT?

Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 is already set to premiere on AMC on Sunday, October 17, at 9:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to mark that down along with all the other big premieres hitting the 2021 Fall TV schedule soon.

Fear the Walking Dead wrapped up its sixth season in a massive way, putting its various character groupings through nuclear devastation. Season 7 is heading to AMC this fall, with the zombie drama's Comic-Con@Home panel revealing the premiere date will be on Sunday, October 17. The panel also gave fans a look at the first new footage from the new cult-free season, and the first one delivered an update on Morgan and Grace that addressed a major issue that has often been ignored within the Walking Dead franchise.

And what's that major issue? Screaming, hungry babies, of course. The first Season 7 video follows up on Morgan and Grace's big new story push from the Season 6 finale, when they discovered the now-orphaned Li'l Morgan, and the situation is one that 99.99% of new parents can relate to with much stress and aggravation. Basically, Morgan and Grace are trying to get some uncomfortable sleep in the midst of an upset baby's warbling cries, and it's not like there's a super-helpful room nearby specifically being used for hoarding baby formula and breast milk. So it stands to reason that Li'l Morgan will never stop crying...ever. Everrrrr.

The first Season 7 footage went live online just as the panel ended, so check it out below!

And while Fear the Walking Dead obviously did feature the same crying child in the Season 6 finale - it was indeed his cries that drew Morgan and Grace away from their suicidal plans - the Season 7 footage is one of the very rare moments in this franchise that directly tapped into how ever-present the concept of "blood-curdling wails" is where infants are concerned. In a ruined world that already makes it hard enough for grown-ass adults to scrape up a meal, things only gets more complicated when it comes to providing nourishment for far younger survivors.

I cannot TELL you how often I had concerns during The Walking Dead's earlier seasons that the characters must have been keeping Judith Grimes trapped in a soundproof box throughout most of her pre-school-age years, since her unending screams were never an issue for Rick or the many, many people who had to step in for babysitting duties over the years. It's hard enough to get an older child who understands directions to be quiet in the heat of an important moment, so the fact that Judith wasn't constantly crying herself into exhaustion is curious to put it lightly.

In the long run, I guess I'd rather deal with crying Fear the Walking Dead characters than having Fear the Walking Dead episodes turning me into a sobbing mess, so there you go. It's not quite clear yet what fans can expect to see from Colman Domingo's Victor Strand, who will be living his life to the fullest in Season 7, but I cannot imagine Li'l Morgan surviving very long in his presence, so here's hoping Morgan can tap into his deep reserve of patience to make that situation work.

Find out where it's all going when Fear the Walking Dead debuts Season 7 on AMC on Sunday, October 17, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Be sure to keep up with all the other 2021 Fall TV shows hitting the schedule soon, too!

Finally hopping its way into theaters after several COVID-related delays, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway will bring Beatrix Potter's most beloved character back to the big screen. Likewise, James Corden will also return to voice the titular bunny. Once again starring Domhnall Gleeson and Rose Byrne and featuring the returning voice talents of Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, and Sia, this live-action/animated sequel includes some new faces and voices this time around — many of whom you'll recognize, including David Oyelowo. If you're wondering where you've seen/heard the Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway cast before, we're here to help!

Domhnall Gleeson (Thomas McGregor/Mr. Jeremy Fisher)

Reprising his role as Thomas McGregor, Domhnall Gleeson returns to play the male lead in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. He also voices Mr. Jeremy Fisher. First gaining notice for playing Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2, Gleeson became a Tony-nominated actor for his 2006 Broadway performance in The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Later, the actor starred in Ex Machina, About Time, Frank, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Crash Pad, and The Little Stranger. Also, Gleeson played General Armitage Hux in the Star Wars movies. His other film credits include Brooklyn, The Revenant, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, Never Let Me Go, True Grit, Anna Karenina, Dredd, Calvary, Unbroken, and mother!

Additionally, on television, Domhnall Gleeson starred in HBO's Run last year. Most recently, the actor appeared in BBC 4's Frank of Ireland, which he co-created with his brother, Brian Gleeson, who plays the titular Frank. His other TV credits include Catastrophe, Your Bad Self, and When Harvey Met Bob. Currently, Gleeson is filming a role in HBO's The White House Plumbers.

Rose Byrne (Bea McGregor/Jemima Puddle-Duck)

In the part of Bea McGregor, Rose Byrne returns to play the female lead in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. She also lends her voice to the role of Jemima Puddle-Duck. Following her lead performance in The Goddess of 1967, Byrne transitioned into Hollywood with Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones. She found success through her Emmy-nominated part in FX's Damages and her standout supporting turn in Bridesmaids.

From there, Rose Byrne starred in the Insidious movies, the Neighbors movies, I Give It A Year, Adult Beginners, The Meddler, Juliet Naked, and Instant Family. Her other film credits include X-Men: First Class and Apocalypse, Knowing, 28 Weeks Later, Marie Antoinette, Tory, Wicker Park, Get Him to the Greek, The Place Beyond the Pines, This Is Where I Leave You, Annie (2014), and Spy. As a voice actress, Byrne is heard in I Am Mother and Jexi. Last year, the actress starred in Like a Boss and Irresistible. On TV, Byrne appeared in FX's Miss America. Later this year, she'll star in Apple TV+'s Physical.

James Corden (Peter Rabbit)

As our titular hare, James Corden returns to the voice booth to bring the animated Peter Rabbit to life once more. Better known as the host of The Late Late Show with James Corden, the actor found fame through starring/co-writing BBC's Gavin & Stacey, for which he won a BAFTA. He also won a Tony for his Broadway performance in One Man, Two Guvnors. Prior to this stage work, Corden received acclaim for his performance as Timms in The History Boys. He reprised this role for the 2006 film version. His other notable film credits include Into the Woods, Begin Again, Ocean's 8, Cats, Kill Your Friends, Gulliver's Travels, Starter for 10, and The Three Musketeers. Most recently, Corden had a Golden Globe-nominated supporting turn in The Prom.

As a voice actor, additionally, James Corden is heard in The Emoji Movie, Smallfoot, Trolls, Planet 51, and the English dub of Animals United. He also lent his voice to the UK version of Norm of the North. Last year, Corden was heard in Superintelligence and Trolls World Tour.

David Oyelowo (Nigel Basil-Jones)

Playing the dastardly Nigel Basil-Jones, David Oyelowo is the human antagonist in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. Rising to prominence through his commanding lead performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Oyelowo was Emmy-nominated that same year for his central role in HBO's Nightingale. His other lead performances include A United Kingdom, Queen of Katwe, Gringo, Don't Let Go, Five Nights in Maine, Middle of Nowhere, and Who Do You Love? His other notable film credits include Lee Daniels' The Butler, Jack Reacher, Lincoln, A Most Violent Year, Interstellar, A Wrinkle in Time, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Last King of Scotland, The Help, The Cloverfield Paradox, and Red Tails. Last year, he appeared in Come Away and The Midnight Sky. This year, Oyelowo provided supporting turns in Chaos Walking and The Water Man, which served as his directorial debut.

Additionally, on television, David Oyelowo appeared in Les Miserables, Five Days, and the upcoming The Girl Before. As a voice actor, Oyelowo can be heard in The Lion Guard and Star Wars Rebels.

Margot Robbie (Flopsy Rabbit)

As the voice of Flopsy Rabbit, as well as the narrator of this tale, Margot Robbie returns to the voice booth for Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. A rising superstar following her scene-stealing supporting turn in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie received her first Oscar nomination for her lead performance in I, Tonya. Later, she starred in Suicide Squad, Focus, Mary Queen of Scots, Focus, Terminal, The Legend of Tarzan, Z For Zachariah, and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. She received her second Oscar nomination for her supporting turn in Bombshell. Her other notable film credits include Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, About Time, Goodbye Christopher Robin, and The Big Short.

Furthermore, on TV, Margot Robbie played Donna Freedman in over 300 episodes of the Australian series Neighbours. She also starred in ABC's Pan Am. Last year, Robbie reprised her role as Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey, which she produced. She also starred in and produced last year's Dreamland. Outside of acting, Robbie produced Promising Young Woman. Next, she'll star in The Suicide Squad and David O. Russell's new film.

Elizabeth Debicki (Mopsy Rabbit)

Returning to the role of Mopsy Rabbit, Elizabeth Debicki provides another supporting vocal performance in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. Following her breakout role in The Great Gatsby, Debicki turned heads through her standout performances in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Widows, and Macbeth (2015). The actress received more notice through her roles in Showcase's The Kettering Incident and BBC One/AMC's The Night Manager. Prior to these acting turns, Debicki gave an award-nominated performance in Sydney Theatre's stage production of The Maids.

From there, Elizabeth Debicki had a starring role as Virginia Woolf in Vita & Virginia. Last year, Debicki starred in The Burnt Orange Heresy and impressed in Christopher Nolan's Tenet. Her other film credits include A Few Best Men, Everest, Breath, The Cloverfield Paradox, and The Tale. She also lent her voice to Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Next, Debicki plays Princess Diana in The Crown Seasons 5 and 6.

Aimee Horne (Cottontail Rabbit)

Filling in for Daisy Ridley, who lent her voice in 2018's Peter Rabbit, Aimee Horne receives one of her most high-profile film acting roles yet in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. Most notably, the actress received notice and acclaim for her stage work, notably for her touring role as Polly in Fawlty Towers Live. Prior to this vocal performance, Horne played Ms. Woodcock in Burning Man. She also provided a supporting turn in Love is Now. Additionally, the actress starred in short films like 2010's The Filmmaker and the upcoming The Playlist. Furthermore, Horne can be heard in 2014's Raker. Outside of film, Horne had guest star appearances in Winter and Psychotown. As a voice actress, she has done a large volume of voiceover work.

Hayley Atwell (Mittens)

Joining the voice ensemble for Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is Hayley Atwell as Mittens. Receiving her breakout role in The Duchess, for which she was BAFTA-nominated, Atwell was Golden Globe-nominated for her lead performance in Starz's The Pillars of the Earth. Shortly thereafter, she found more prominence when she played Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger. She reprised this role in ABC's Agent Carter, as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, and Avengers: Endgame. Her other film credits include Testament of Youth, Cinderella (2015), Christopher Robin, Blinded by the Light, Jimi: All Is By My Side, Brideshead Revisited, and Cassandra's Dream. Next, Atwell will star in Mission: Impossible 7.

Outside of film, Hayley Atwell led ABC's Conviction and BBC One's Howards End and The Long Song. She also voices a main character in Netflix's 3Below: Tales of Arcadia. Additionally, Atwell is seen in Black Mirror and Any Human Heart. Away from acting, the actress hosts the spy podcast, True Spies.

Sia (Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle)

Similar to the first movie, Sia lends her voice to the role of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. Best known as the chart-topping artist behind "Chandelier" and "Cheap Thrills," the musician-turned-actress is heard in a couple of animated movies, including My Little Pony: The Movie and Charming, along with the original Peter Rabbit. She also narrated the 2018 documentary, Dominion. Also, Sia provided cameos in Annie (2014) and Piccadilly Jim. On TV, additionally, Sia can be seen in Nobodies and Home and Away and heard in South Park, Transparent, and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?

Outside of acting, Sia made her feature screenwriting and directorial debut with this year's controversial Music. She also wrote original music for the soundtrack of 2018's Vox Lux. Her music can also be heard in Zootopia, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Dumplin', Pitch Perfect 2, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Great Gatsby, Finding Dory, Dolittle, Fifty Shades Freed, Lion, Star Trek Beyond, and Wonder Woman, to name only a few movies.

Lennie James (Barnabas)

In the role of Barnabas, Lennie James joins the voice cast of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway in a supporting turn. Most notably, James is known for playing Morgan Jones in AMC's The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. He also played the mysterious Robert Hawkins in CBS's Jericho. Additionally, James is the creator, writer, and lead actor behind Sky Atlantic's Save Me.

Furthermore, Lennie James wrote and starred in Storm Damage, resulting in a BAFTA nomination for the TV actor. His other notable TV credits include Low Winter Sun, Line of Duty, Hung, and Out of the Blue. Most recently, James lent his voice to Amazon Prime's Invincible. Additionally, in film, James can be seen in Blade Runner 2049, The Next Three Days, Get On Up, Sahara, 24 Hour Party People, Snatch, and Lost in Space.

Damon Herriman (Tom Kitten)

Also joining the vocal ensemble of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is Damon Herriman, who lends his voice to the role of Tom Kitten. Best known for his portrayal of Dewey Crowe in FX's Justified, Herriman gained notice for his striking portrayals of Charles Manson in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood and Netflix's Mindhunter. He also starred in the title role of Punch in 2020's Judy and Punch. His other notable film credits include J. Edgar, The Nightingale, The Lone Ranger, The Water Diviner, Son of a Gun, Son of the Mask, Candy, Redbelt, House of Wax, and 100 Bloody Acres. Earlier this year, Herriman was heard in the role of Kabal in Mortal Kombat.

Additionally, on television, Damon Herriman plays a main role in FX's Mr. Inbetween. He's also in the main cast of Epix's Perpetual Grace, LTD and Showcase's Lambs of God. Earlier this year, Herriman appeared in BBC's The Serpent. The actor's other television credits include Battle Creek, Squinters, Incorporated, and The Commons.

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is in theaters now.

Major spoilers below for the latest episode of Fear the Walking Dead, so be warned!

Okay, so I went into the Fear the Walking Dead episode "In Dreams" with two preconceived notions unabashedly at the forefront of my mind: dream-based TV episodes usually feel like filler, and this series will never possibly wreck my emotional guts more than Jenna Elfman's June discovering Garret Dillahunt's John after he'd already gone into full walker mode. And yet somehow, even with the arguably unnecessary amnesia element thrown in there, Karen David's Grace made the dreams meaningful, and in the most gingerly brutal way that possibly crushed me even more than John's death. I'd slow-clap if it all wasn't so damned sad. (Well, except for seeing Salazar and Strand being all buddy-buddy.)

On the outset, so much credit goes to those who penned the episode, which is credited to co-showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, as well as writer Nazrin Choudhury. Because it continuously upended some expectations while justifiably matching up with others. For instance, it was almost immediately clear that Sahana Sprinivasan's Athena would be revealed as Grace's future-daughter. But instead of stretching that "mystery" out, the episode quickly addressed that after bringing in Lennie James' greyed-out Morgan, and focused more on Grace forming emotional connections with Athena, largely through Roy Orbison and cassettes.

Second, by rather blatantly setting up the idea so early on that Grace wouldn't survive Athena's birth, Fear the Walking Dead nearly shot itself in the foot there, since it made me jump to the conclusion that a twist was coming. I figured Grace would indeed live through the doctor-less delivery, and did not have much optimism for Athena's chances. But if I thought going into the episode's final act mentally prepared would do my emotional state any good, I was so very wrong.

Now is where I must heap some praise onto Fear the Walking Dead's cast, particularly Karen David and the devastatingly one-and-done performance from Sahana Sprinivasan. The actresses pulled off the nearly absurd trick of creating an authentic relationship between a stressed-out mother's consciousness and the unborn-teenaged version of said mother's offspring, while also adding more depth by bringing in the biological father's tragic end. And in a way that made it all the more heartbreaking once Athena's behavior started to loop and shattered the dreamy illusion.

I guess I can stop tiptoeing around that pummeling final sequence, which was shot just splendidly by director Michael E. Satrazemis. Following the altercation with Nick Stahl's Riley - more on that below - Grace popped on her headphones and experienced one of TV's quickest deliveries, but before that jokey thought could be fully processed, it was clear from Morgan's actions that Athena did not make it. And then my heart shattered as Grace kept asking Morgan what was wrong. And then all the oxygen in the room left once Morgan turned around, unable to hide the severity of the situation from his face. And then everything else in the room shattered when Grace embraced li'l Athena and laid out the most upsetting exposition possible:

As a father who wallows in pessimistic thoughts on a regular basis, I was perhaps an easier target than others for this conclusion to Grace's pregnancy arc. And I can see how some might think Fear the Walking Dead went a little overboard with this kind of a death story. By all means, if the episode had fallen into the painfully tropey waters that I was expecting from the start, I would be there for the cringing. But it was a well-designed journey through Grace's mind that gave Karen David the fully rounded episode that she deserved, and also introduced one of the most unexpectedly heart-wrenching deaths of the franchise.

But what happens now? In Morgan and Grace's mind, is Riley responsible for Athena's death by her having to dive out of the way to avoid his truck? (I want to take a second to appreciate that after Riley got stabbed in the chest, with Morgan presumably thinking in error that the dude was leaving forever, he immediately returned to get revenge, which is a villainous instinct I can get behind.) What could that key possibly open that it's worth all the death surrounding it? I'm hoping like hell it isn't just a meaningless MacGuffin, and that Riley takes it back to John Glover's Teddy and it leads to something awesome. Like Kim Dickens' Madison. Is that too much?

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET, and when Season 6 is done, there will still be lots to look forward to in the 2021 Summer TV schedule.

Spoilers below for the latest episode of The Walking Dead, titled "One More."

With the extended Season 10 episodes, The Walking Dead fans are witnessing stories and character beats that probably wouldn't have existed in this form had the pandemic not turned the AMC drama's schedule completely around. So we might never have met new characters Elijah and Cole, we might not have learned as much about Daryl's first love interest Leah, and we might have not have witnessed the most recent episode's blink-and-miss-it easter egg that had fans believing that The Walking Dead was paying homage to Lennie James' Morgan Jones and the drama's very first episode.

Well, more specifically, the episode "One More" featured a quick easter egg that appeared to be dedicated to Morgan's son, Duane Jones, as portrayed in that lone installment by Adrian Kali Turner. For those who didn't catch it, you're definitely not alone, and if you did catch it and made the rather easy Walking Dead connection, you're not alone either. Check out the image below and peep the bourbon bottle that Seth Gilliam's Father Gabriel and Ross Marquand's Aaron are drinking from while they're inside Mays' shelter.

That's right, hidden in the shadows is the very distinctly named "Duane Jones Bourbon," which understandably inspired some misplaced celebrations and speculations about Morgan's son still surviving out there in the world somewhere, clearly having honed his distilling skills. Plenty of fans who caught the liquor bottle's distinct name took to social media to share their thoughts and hopes for Duane Jones' potential return in Season 11.

The biggest avenue for theorizing ties the presumed-dead TV character Duane to the presumed-dead comic character Elodie, Michonne's daughter who makes a shocking return to her mother's life after the protagonists discover the Commonwealth community. There are quite a few fans out there who would apparently love to see Duane take on the live-action version of Elodie's story, even though Lennie James' Morgan isn't even on The Walking Dead proper anymore. Of course, Fear the Walking Dead could also very well find a way to bring its characters to the Commonwealth, but no one should expect to see an older Duane in there, trading booze recipes with other citizens.

After The Walking Dead's "One More" finished, AMC's latest episode of Talking Dead aired, and even though neither Chris Hardwick nor the guests actually brought up Gabriel and Aaron's boozy drink of choice, the liquor bottle's name did get explained during a fun-fact interstitial. Read it below:

It's somewhat baffling that this explanation doesn't mention the character Duane Jones at all, considering his death was the main factor behind Morgan "going clear" in Season 3 of The Walking Dead, as well as all of the up and down arcs regarding the character's sanity in the years after that. Morgan even spoke about his lingering grief over Duane with Karen David's Grace on Fear the Walking Dead, with Lennie James also having discussed the character's hesitance to start a new family, so it's obvious that the shows' creative teams haven't forgotten him. Maybe they didn't want to associate a liquor brand with a character who was 10 years old the last time viewers saw him.

Of course, it's not as if these details are mutually exclusive from one another. The Walking Dead comic book character Duane Jones was named in honor of the Night of the Living Dead star of the same name. So in essence, Morgan's son and that $2,000 bourbon are connected, just not in the way that any fans hoping to see Duane again probably hoped.

The Walking Dead has three episodes left in its extended Season 10 run, with the eleventh and final season set to kick off on AMC later this year. We're definitely going to see new characters soon as more survivors reach The Commonwealth, even if Duane Jones almost definitely won't be among them. While waiting to hear more, check out why guest star Robert Patrick thinks fans should be worried about Father Gabriel after that brutal episode.

AMC's Fear the Walking Dead has experienced a bit of a second wind with Season 6, which has arguably been the horror drama's most acclaimed season to date. The sectioned-off storytelling really meshed well this time around with the overall narrative, and the cast has been as solid as ever. With the first half of the season having wrapped with Episode 7 and the return of Karen David's Grace, Fear the Walking Dead has released the first big trailer for the back nine episodes, and it's a doozy.

As you can see from the video above, all kinds of excitement is on the way for all the major Fear the Walking Dead characters, with our eyes being particularly drawn to the super-dramatic confrontation between Garret Dillahunt's John and Lennie James' Morgan. The two characters are quite possibly Fear's biggest peacekeepers, and yet John appears ready to rip Morgan's face from his body in the Season 6 trailer.

After Morgan defends himself from John's shoves, John screams that something major that Morgan did was most definitely not his choice to make. It's obviously not clear what that choice was, but it definitely has something to do with John's decision to move forward with his plans to leave and escape from Virginia's clutches. Morgan likely got June involved, and that's not something John is willing to take lightly. But then we see John and Morgan side by side later in the trailer, so either they made up quickly, or the inciting incident got brought up after they reconnected.

And then we have Rubén Blades' Daniel Salazar, who was previously shown to be faking memory loss as a hairdresser in Virginia's camp. Viewers knew he was only faking after he came clean to Morgan, but it looks like someone else will discover his long-con ruse when Fear the Walking Dead returns. It appears to be Colby Minifie's Virginia holding the gun to his head, which doesn't seem like it'll end well for Daniel. Not that I think the show will kill him off completely, especially with this kind of a hard tease, but he'll at least be suffering for a bit.

Let's quickly run through all the other big and interesting moments that popped in Fear the Walking Dead's Season 6 trailer. Somebody's getting buried. Morgan finds a vehicle. John hits a literal dead end. Lucy and Grace are in some kind of a lineup, though we can only assume that'll end slightly less morosely than Negan's introduction on The Walking Dead proper. Maggie Grace's Al and Austin Amelio's Dwight are still partnered up together following Dwight's latest split with Christine Evangelista's Sherry. Of course, it's obviously worth noting that her masked group shows up in the new trailer, so it's possible they'll reconnect once again for something more permanent. Or not.

The biggest moment in the rest of the trailer – at least beyond Dakota potentially being on the chopping block driving through that crowd of zombies – is the first look at new co-star John Glover's character, whom Alycia Debnam-Carter's Alicia calls the "king of the crazies." But who are these crazies that he's reigning over? I mean, besides any number of survivors in this universe. We might as well start the theory train that this dude has some kind of information about Madison's survival.

Fear the Walking Dead will return to AMC for more Season 6 episodes at some point in 2021, though the exact date has yet to be announced.

For a show in a franchise that gets much mileage out of killing off main characters in shocking ways, Fear the Walking Dead has for years been tiptoeing a thin and fine line when it comes to the current fate of Kim Dickens' Madison Clark. Viewers will no doubt remember back in Season 4, when Madison was revealed to have (seemingly) sacrificed herself at the stadium so that Alicia, Nick and others could escape the huge horde. Ever since, fans have speculated that she's still alive out there, and Fear the Walking Dead's showrunners have yet to actually deny that.

Walking Dead and Fear fans are used to show creatives playing coy with narrative details, and the idea of "never say never" when it comes to wild character returns. But as opposed to the flimsiness of past rumors that Corey Hawkins' Heath could return, it actually does sound like Fear the Walking Dead's showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss have legitimate plans for Madison in the pipeline. But do they actually have such plans, or is this all just one big post-apocalyptic gaslighting display?

First, here's how Ian Goldberg responded to ComicBook.com when asked if Madison was still out there, and if she was possibly the mystery savior responsible for Morgan's survival.

And now below, check out what the showrunner duo told Insider when asked about Madison's potential return (possibly by flashback), and whether or not she's actually dead.

Clearly, Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg are devious robots whose power is derived from the hopeful confusion of television audiences everywhere! Well, okay, it's probably stretching things, since they'd probably have to get some of their power from electrical sources. In any case, the point is that Fear the Walking Dead has yet to give fans a sense of closure with Madison's storyline, and I can't imagine any hardcore viewers are going to just suddenly stop wondering about her just because we've met another 50 characters in the meantime. Perhaps if Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood vet Kim Dickens wasn't so beloved as a person, it would be easier to let go, but it's not happening.

So neither showrunner is willing to say whether or not Madison is still walking among the living, but they aren't exactly denying that she could be the person responsible for saving Morgan's life after he was left for dead by Virginia. They only speak in vague knowables, such as the idea that Morgan doesn't specifically know who the person is. It's going to be very interesting to see how that all plays out, Madison or no Madison.

The topic of Madison's possible return has obviously come up before, but never more strongly than in Season 5, when Alicia herself started to fall into those same belief patterns after finding a series of painted trees that seemed to be promoting her mother's wisdom. Unfortunately Madison-lovers, those painted trees were the work of Colby Hollman's Wes and his spray-painting talents.

Even if Madison IS still alive out there, there are no guarantees that she would easily cross paths with Alicia, Strand, June or Salazar again. Granted, Fear the Walking Dead has proven time and again that people definitely do just randomly run into each other out there in the open world, but it always comes with a grain of TV salt.

Even if Kim Dickens doesn't ever return to Fear the Walking Dead, that's STILL not definitive proof that we'll never see her again. The Dead-verse is likely expanding in the future to incorporate the Tales of the Walking Dead anthology series, which is geared to tell standalone stories featuring new characters, dead characters, and presumably characters whose fates remain mysterious. Unless, of course, the powers that be decide to give Madison Clark her own film series similar to the plans for Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes. Which probably won't happen, but all expectations are on the table with this show.

Fear the Walking Dead is currently on winter hiatus as the crew works on getting the back nine episodes filmed. Viewers can expect to see the show returning to AMC at some point in early 2021, likely in February or March. While waiting, don't forget to check out the two-part Walking Dead: World Beyond Season 1 finale on Sunday, November 29, starting at 9:00 p.m. ET. Bookmark our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule and our 2021 Winter and Spring TV rundown to see all the new and returning shows on the way.

Spoilers below for the Fear the Walking Dead midseason finale, so be warned!

For the first 35 minutes of its Season 6 mid-year finale, Fear the Walking Dead delivered a super-chilling standalone premise in which Alycia Debnam-Carey's Alicia and Zoe Colletti's Dakota (and Alexa Nisenson's Charlie, to an extent) were trapped in a hunting lodge with a socially functioning lunatic taxidermist. That situation resulted in one of the spinoff's coolest-looking walker attacks yet (which factored in lots of antlers), setting up a gear-shift that brought Morgan, Strand and others into the narrative mix. Oh yeah, and we finally learned what happened to Karen David's long-lost Grace!

Bizarrely enough, this was the first episode of Season 6 in which Alicia and Lennie James' Morgan crossed paths, as she was totally unaware that he survived the wounds he suffered in the Season 5 finale. (It was extremely coincidental that everyone happened upon that hunting lodge, but that's neither here nor there.) It was perfect timing on one hand, with Morgan able to tell Alicia about his new hideaway where Maggie Grace's Al and Austin Amelio's Dwight are currently holed up. But Strand's arrival was less timely, and led to a brief standoff, since he did not want to stray from his original plan. Then, in the final scene, viewers learned about Grace's whereabouts and Virginia's newest plan, so let's dive into those topics.

What Happened To Grace?

Technically, "Damage from the Inside" didn't detail everything that Grace experienced after fans last saw her in Season 5. However, we do know that she has been held captive by Colby Minifie's Virginia for an undetermined amount of time. It's clear that Virginia is treating Grace less harshly than she would other prisoners, considering the latter has a comfortable-looking bed and a book to read, but that's not the only difference here.

Grace's cell, so to speak, is not set up in any kind of a public jailhouse, and is instead quite hidden. One has to go through a locked and guarded fence gate, and then has to find the actual door, which was blocked by a large set of shelves. Keeping mum about Grace's whereabouts was apparently quite important to Virginia, who has been keeping the pregnant woman around as her big secret weapon to use against Morgan if the time ever came. And the time has most definitely arrived.

It's unknown if Grace has had any other roles in Virginia's communities, but it's highly unlikely, since news of her presence would spread around and eventually reach Morgan's ears. It's also unknown if Grace was involved with saving Morgan's life after he was shot, but that also seems unlikely given what transpired with Morgan in the Season 6 premiere. But we can presumably expect more answers to come when new episode arrive in 2021.

What Is Virginia's New Plan?

Rarely has a Fear the Walking Dead character been more uncomfortable than Strand was when he had to tell Virginia that her sister Dakota sided with Alicia and Morgan. Once she made sure Strand was on her side – though he technically isn't, it's still unclear when he will decide to break away from her influence – Virginia made the next step in her big plan quite clear: Strand needs to round up all the Gulch traitors and bring them back to her.

Virginia's choice of action will be interesting to watch when Fear the Walking Dead returns, considering part of her anger is invested in her own sister Dakota opting to double-cross her in favor of the other survivors. (Dakota's decision was of course influenced by Virginia having killed their parents, though we have yet to learn major details about that part of the villain's backstory.) So Virginia will no doubt want to redirect that anger against Morgan and the rest, even though she already hates Morgan as much as she possibly can. Is it possible she will succeed in killing him off before Season 7 gets here?

Probably not, considering it was hinted at in the episode that Alicia and others are willing to work with the spray-paint group (and presumably any other Virginia-opposing groups) as a way to strike at Virginia. If Morgan, Dakota and others are able to team up with those remaining group members to form a larger offensive, that could do a lot more damage to the antagonists than Strand's "take them down from within" plan. Of course, there are no guarantees that everyone will get along very well, and I'm willing to bet there will be several more large-scale conflicts to come.

For now, Fear the Walking Dead has wrapped up the first half of Season 6, while AMC will spend its post-Thanksgiving weekend airing the two-part season finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond on Sunday, November 29, at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see what new and returning shows are on the way during FTWD's hiatus, head to our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule and our 2021 Winter and Spring premiere guide.

Lennie James has become an integral part of The Walking Dead universe, transitioning from the flagship show to Fear The Walking Dead, much to the delight of fans. He may still have a solid run in the franchise yet, but that doesn't mean the actor isn't disinterested in jumping into another major franchise in Hollywood.

James recently did an interview with The Nerds of Color and was asked about his love for all things Marvel. When asked if there was any franchise he'd like to join if given the opportunity, James talked about his love of Daredevil and gave his thoughts on the franchise's efforts in television and movies to this point:

Unsurprisingly, Lennie James has a love for Daredevil and has about the same viewpoints about the movie and the show as I think a majority of fans would. Ben Affleck is coming back as Bat-Fleck so I feel like it's fair game to take shots at his Daredevil again, not that the costume was at all his fault.

Obviously for Lennie James to play Matt Murdock, his version couldn't be connected to either previous incarnation of the character. Lennie James had a few suggestions as to how to make his version of Matt Murdock happen, suggesting something akin to what James Mangold did with another aged Marvel character:

The odds of Lennie James playing Daredevil in the MCU feel low, but are not impossible. Marvel has been toying with the idea of the multiverse in its latest and upcoming TV shows and movies, and rumors have swirled that all the past actors who played Spider-Man in movies will get together for a big team-up movie in the future.

Multiple versions of heroes certainly open up the possibility of a Daredevil played by Lennie James making an appearance in a TV show or film, so let's keep our fingers crossed that day may come. Imagine a Matt Murdock with the intensity of Fear The Walking Dead's Morgan Jones, and tell me that's not a casting that would put some butts in seats.

It's been said that Marvel will soon officially get back the rights to Daredevil and its characters before the end of 2020 and will then be free to make content with the characters once more. It's still not clear what the plan is for the character when he does rejoin the Marvel family, though many have hoped Charlie Cox would reprise the role in some way. If not, then it's obviously going to be recast, and Lennie James may have a chance (however small) to make his dream a reality.

For now, Lennie James can be seen on Fear The Walking Dead on AMC Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET. Continue to stick with CinemaBlend for more on the franchise, and for more news happening in television and movies.

Spoilers below for the Season 6 premiere for AMC's Fear the Walking Dead.

After a cold open that introduced a new potential threat by way of the episode's titular phrase "The End Is the Beginning," Fear the Walking Dead provided a more clear update on Morgan's unexpected whereabouts with the start of Season 6. Left shot and bleeding in the Season 5 finale, Morgan managed to survive more than a month after that particular plight, and the gangrenous nature giving him those red eyes also gave him the somewhat miraculous advantage of not being targeted by walkers.

Lennie James and other Fear the Walking Dead cast members recently spoke with CinemaBlend and other outlets about the first few episodes of Season 6, and the actor talked about how much he enjoyed the different and new ways Morgan has been used from season to season. When asked about Morgan's Carol-esque turn in the Season 6 premiere, during which he actively tried to avoid Isaac's assistance and companionship, here's how James answered:

I cannot lie, Morgan's water tower abode was pretty badass, as somewhat hard as it is to believe that it exists. And if he made that all happen in part to make sure Karen David's Grace has a safe and sound place to call home at some point in the future after she returns to the show, then it's that much more of a bummer that it got demolished by Demetrius Grosse's short-lived Josiah LaRoux. Of course, he's also being motivated by his mystery savior that saved him from walkers and patched up his wounds.

Much as he may have wanted to fight against the instinct at first, Morgan went along with the secret-hiding Isaac to find his pregnant wife, which definitely served as a surrogate situation for the pregnant Grace. Plus, it got Morgan to go buck on a bunch of walkers at the same time. And on top of all that, Isaac reversed Morgan's death wish by taking the infection-causing bullet out of his body before it went the whole nine yards and turned him into a walker. Unless what he said was legit, and "Morgan Jones is dead" now.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 is obviously starting later than usual seasons do, with pandemic shutdowns and other reasons going into new episodes being pushed until later in 2020. (The Walking Dead dealt with its own issues in finally getting episode 1016 in front of viewers.) That long delay meant none of the Fear cast members could really talk much about what viewers would be getting when Season 6 started. During the aforementioned press event, I asked Lennie James how he felt about having to keep Morgan's fate a secret for around six months longer than he usually had to keep premiere episode secrets. He answered with:

Considering this first episode focused entirely on Morgan's storyline – to the point where a baby was named after him – it intentionally left a whole lot of unanswered questions about the key that Josiah had around his neck, as well as what's happening with most of the other characters in this show. Now that Virginia knows for sure that Morgan is alive and capable of beheading others, it'll be interesting to see how she reacts. She looked a little too scared for her own good in my eyes.

Fear the Walking Dead is now back in full for Season 6, which airs Sunday nights on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET, right before brand new episodes of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. While waiting for Sunday night to get here, check out our Fall TV 2020 premiere schedule to stay up to date with all the new and returning shows on the way, and stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more exclusive content from Fear the Walking Dead and other shows in AMC's horror drama universe.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 is finally set to kick off on October 11, helping to end AMC's extended zombie drought. Even though the premiere was supposed to happen much earlier this year, the show's stars and creative team have largely remained mum about what audiences can expect to see from the new episodes. Thankfully, a brand new Season 6 trailer is here with live-action confirmation that Lennie James' Morgan survived the Season 5 finale, though there's something not quite right about him.

Check out Morgan's red eyes and lots of foreshadowing about a particularly deadly event in the exclusive Fear the Walking Dead trailer below!

Though he was shot and basically left for dead in the Season 5 finale, Morgan Jones is a survivor, y'all! Granted, he's not exactly looking the part in the trailer above. His hair has completely grown out all over his head, his eyes are now redder than Colby Minifie's hair, and he's apparently been out on his own for a while, with all of the other protagonists having been shipped off to various communities ruled over by Virginia.

Morgan might look and act a little differently, but he's still quick to bring his trusty staff up at the first sign of danger.

It's not immediately clear who Morgan is talking to in that moment. His memory doesn't appear to be warped, considering his dialogue early on about finding a new safe spot for everyone to stay, so it's likely someone he actually doesn't know. But who? Could it be the confirmed-to-return Christine Evangelista as Dwight's long lost love Sherry? Or maybe someone from the CRM helicopter group?

But while Morgan obviously isn't dead, it looks like Fear the Walking Dead will deliver quite a few deaths early on in Season 6, though the details are obviously being kept secret for now. But one can assume that it won't all be nameless villains from Virginia's group, since Danay García's Luciana mentions that "good people died here today," which may or may not have something to do with that big explosion at the end of the trailer.

Arguably the most ominous moment in the trailer is Garret Dillahunt's trip to the makeshift cemetery, and with the words "Is Dead" on display, no less. We don't know who his character John Dorie would be mourning in such a way, but that feeling is likely also there during John's other shot in the trailer. The most obvious guess would be that something will happen to Jenna Elfman's June, though I don't think they'd tease that potential whopper right there in the trailer. Perhaps something ends up happening to Maggie Grace's Althea, considering she's barely in the Season 6 trailer.

Clearly, Demetrius Grosse's new character Emile will be a particularly deadly force in Season 6, as just about all of his trailer moments involve some violent act. (Virginia probably doesn't bring a lot of pacifists into the Pioneers.) But will he be responsible for killing off any of the protagonists?

And then just to keep things even more mysterious, Fear the Walking Dead also dropped a masked horse rider into the mix. Granted, that might just be Dwight trying to keep his identity hidden from Virginia's crew. Or it might be someone else entirely.

Find out what everything in the trailer means when Season 6 hits AMC on Sunday, October 11, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Fear will be bundled together with its fellow spinoff Walking Dead: World Beyond, making weekends that much most post-apocalyptic for the rest of 2020. While waiting for more zombie mayhem, head to our Fall TV 2020 premiere schedule to see what other new and returning shows are on the way.

A zombie apocalypse reunion is coming to Robert Kirkman's new show, with no fewer than six veterans of The Walking Dead assembling to tackle roles for Amazon's Invincible. The Walking Dead cast members range from those who were killed off years ago to those who are still alive and as well as can be in the zombie apocalypse, and they join the already-announced Khary Payton. So, who will be part of Invincible?

The new series will feature Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead's Maggie Rhee) as War Woman, Chad Coleman (Tyreese) as Martian Man, the very red-headed Michael Cudlitz (Abraham) as Red Rush, Lennie James (Morgan, now on Fear the Walking Dead) as Darkwing, Ross Marquand (Aaron) as The Immortal & Aquarius, and Sonequa Martin-Green as Green Ghost. Khary Payton, who of course plays Ezekiel on The Walking Dead, is on board as Black Samson.

While so many current and former Walking Dead cast members coming back together for a Robert Kirkman project is exciting, it's worth noting that Invincible will be an animated series, with these zombie apocalypse alums lending their voices. That said, there are reasons why these actors are significant as additions to Invincible. The show will be based on Robert Kirkman's book of the same name, and Kirkman himself announced the castings at his Comic-Con@Home virtual panel. He shared:

The Invincible comic series hasn't achieved the same level of fame as Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead series even before the AMC series launched, but prospective viewers shouldn't assume that it's for kids just because the show is animated and just because it won't take place in the zombie apocalypse. The comics were known to get graphic, and adults are presumably the target demographic with this show.

The comics, which launched back in 2003 and ran for 144 issues before ending in February 2018, centered on Markus Grayson, the son of a novelist who is actually Omni-Man, an extraterrestrial superhero. Mark's own super powers begin to manifest when he turns 17, and he ultimately begins to train under his father under the superhero name of "Invincible."

An adaptation of Invincible has been in the works as far back as April 2017, although it was originally intended to be a movie with Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg. Then, in June 2019, news broke that Robert Kirkman's Invincible would become a TV show at Amazon with an order for an eight-episode first season.

All of this said, potential viewers shouldn't count on seeing Invincible debut with so many members of the Walking Dead cast on board any time too soon. Neither Amazon nor Robert Kirkman have announced a premiere window, let alone a hard premiere date. Production halted through much of the entertainment industry earlier this year, but hopefully Invincible's status as an animated series means that production could continue.

For now, fans of Robert Kirkman adaptations can always check out The Walking Dead. The first nine seasons are currently available streaming on Netflix, and executive producer Angela Kang dropped some intriguing news about what remains of Season 10. You can find more viewing options now and in the coming weeks on our 2020 summer TV premiere schedule.

Because time is a severely warped circle these days, it's baffling to think that Fear the Walking Dead has been keeping Morgan's Season 5 fate a secret ever since September 2019. That need for secrecy has obviously lasted longer than anyone thought it might, since TV productions and release schedules have been in flux since March. But Season 6 now has a locked-in release date on AMC in October, and the cast and crew got together to tease what's coming soon for the characters when the show returns. But what about Morgan?

To be expected, everyone involved was a lot quicker to talk about all the other characters beyond Morgan, while Lennie James' protagonist got the short end of the explanation stick. Fear the Walking Dead's Comic-Con@Home panel opened up with an extended Season 6 teaser, followed by moderator Chris Hardwick asking showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg if Morgan was okay. Their answer was beyond vague, though it had a purely pessimistic vibe, despite the jokiness involved.

We can all assume Scott Gimple is talking about blood, but after being shot and left for dead by Colby Minifie's Virginia, Morgan could probably down a few beers as well. (R.I.P. Jimbo.) The character's chances were seemingly lowered even more in the footage we've seen from Season 6 so far. It's chilling to see his eyes go completely red like they did in the trailer's final seconds, since I can't imagine a cause that isn't just "yeah, he's definitely a walker now." A fan question was posed about Morgan's red eyes, and Andrew Chambliss at least confirmed that Morgan isn't bothered by pollen. In his words:

The character that now has possession of Morgan's stuff delivered a warning that was ominous for all the reasons. He went looking for Morgan's body and didn't find it, and though he almost definitely assumes that Morgan is a walker now, fans still have a sliver of hope that such villainous assumptions are destined to be thwarted. We can hope for Morgan to come swooping in at the most opportune time to save Alicia, Strand and other characters from Virginia, only to explain later that every single blood vessel inside his head burst, leading to his gross red eyes. Or that he stumbled into a food coloring processing plant and fell into a vat eyeball-first. Something along those lines.

While Lennie James didn't quite address the question of Morgan's fate head-on, he did field a fan question regarding his burgeoning relationship with Karen David's Grace in a way that touched upon his hopes for the future. (Sure, he's probably just versed in how to answer these kinds of spoiler-avoiding questions, but still.) In his words:

Is there a potential future where a non-walker Morgan not only still alive, but is healthy enough to engage in a romantic relationship with Grace, even if they're not running across hills? The ayes don't have it if Morgan's eyes are a sign. Check out the Season 6 trailer below and judge for yourself what Morgan's situation will be when the new episodes arrive.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 is set to premiere on AMC on Sunday, October 11, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Be sure to tune in and stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more on the show, and bookmark our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule to see what else is premiering during the back half of 2020.

Since its debut on Halloween night in 2010, AMC's The Walking Dead has gone from an intimate adaptation of the Robert Kirkman's long-running comic book series to a massive cultural phenomenon thanks in part to the the rich storylines and the expansive cast that almost outnumbers the army of zombies that populate the show's landscape. And over the course of the show's first 10 seasons, many members of the cast like Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, and Jon Bernthal have become gone from relatively unknown actors to massive stars.

But with a cast as large as the one on The Walking Dead there are bound to be a few that leave the show either because their characters' stories are finished or they want to move onto something else and further their careers. And even though we'll be seeing the return of Lauren Cohan's Maggie when Season 11 premieres, what about some of the other former members of the cast who left the series. What are they up to?

Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes)

Andrew Lincoln served as the anchor of the larger The Walking Dead cast with his portrayal of Rick Grimes for the show's first nine seasons, but the English actor and aggressive zip-up sweater wearing hopeless romantic in Love Actually had been planning on leaving the show as early as Season 8 but stayed on for one more season before leaving to spend more time with his family. Since leaving the AMC series, Lincoln has kept a relatively low profile, but he is set to appear in the upcoming drama Penguin Bloom where he will star alongside Naomi Watts. And despite no longer being on the show, Lincoln recently gave former co-star Danai Gurira a touching sendoff following her final episode. 

Speaking of The Walking Dead, we're still waiting for more news on those spinoff movies featuring the return of Rick Grimes.

Danai Gurira (Michonne)

It seems like it was just yesterday that Danai Gurira announced that she would be stepping away from her role of Michonne after Season 10 of The Walking Dead, explaining that she was being called to other things in her life during a panel at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con. Even before and since her departure, Gurira has remained quite busy balancing time as a hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as a hero in the real world as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, which she was named in December 2018. On top of that, the former The Walking Dead star is busy at work writing the upcoming HBO Max series Americanah, as well as Godzilla Vs. Kong, which is slated to come out in the November 2020.

Jon Bernthal (Shane Walsh)

Jon Bernthal is one of those quietly amazing actors, and that was no different in his portrayal of Shane Walsh, Rick Grimes' former best friend-turned-enemy in the first two seasons of The Walking Dead. The role was suspected to be short-lived from the jump, but there are times when you can't help but miss the gravity Shane brought to many of the situations early on in the series. 

Since leaving the series, Bernthal has become one of the most prolific actors of our time with bit roles in a number of instant-classics as well as Frank Castle on the Netflix Marvel series Daredevil and Punisher. And with several upcoming projects including the TV adaptation of American Gigolo and The Many Saints Of Newark (the long-awaited prequel film to The Sopranos), it looks like we'll be seeing more of Bernthal for years to come.

Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes)

For three seasons on The Walking Dead, Sarah Wayne Callies portrayed Lori Grimes, but the character's fate when she sacrificed herself to give birth to Judith during a Cesarean section that ultimately took her life. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Callies stated that the character had to die in order to push Rick Grimes to the next level. After leaving the show, Callies went on to return to the Fox series Prison Break as well as the TNT drama Colony. The actress is currently on the NBC series The Council Of Dads, a series Callies told The Sioux City Journal stopped her from quitting acting altogether.

Laurie Holden (Andrea)

Laurie Holden was quite vocal about the death of her character Andrea in the Season 3 finale of The Walking Dead, the culmination of a storyline with the Governor the actress was not too fond of following her departure. Since leaving the show, Holden has remained quite busy both with her acting career (which most recently included television work on Proven Innocent and animated feature Arctic Dogs) and her work in charity and human rights work, including the Somaly Mam Foundation, Operation Underground Railroad, and Home From Home.

Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale Horvath)

Jeffrey DeMunn was one of the members of the original Atlanta crew in the first two seasons of The Walking Dead, but the actor asked to be killed off after Frank Darabont, the original showrunner, was pushed out of the production. DeMunn and Darabont have worked together multiple times over the years starting with the 1994 release of The Shawshank Redemption, so it should come as no surprise that the actor would leave in that fashion. Since leaving the show, DeMunn has remained busy in film and television, including the Showtime series Billions, where he currently plays Chuck Rhoades, Sr.

Steven Yeun (Glenn Rhee)

There is no death on The Walking Dead more shocking and unsettling than the brutal murder of Steven Yeun's Glenn by the hands of the evil Negan. Like many of the characters in the series, their deaths were predetermined in the pages of the original comic series, and that's the case for Glenn, though Robert Kirkman shared with Entertainment Weekly that there were talks of keeping him around. Those talks never panned out, but Yeun has stayed busy with projects like Sorry To Bother You, Burning, and the upcoming A24 feature The Humans, where the actor will star alongside Jayne Houdyshell, Richard Jenkins, Beanie Feldstein, Amy Schumer, and June Squibb.

Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon)

Michael Rooker only appeared in 14 episodes of The Walking Dead, but his performance as Daryl Dixon's older and antagonistic brother Merle is one worth remembering. There was no saving Merle after he turned into a zombie at the end of Season 3, but the death of his character hasn't stopped Rooker from continuing his career in film and television. After leaving the series, Rooker became an even bigger star following his portrayal of Yondu in Guardians Of The Galaxy and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2., where he reunited with James Gunn. The partnership, which started with Slither, will continue when Rooker appears in Gunn's 2021 The Suicide Squad. And expect to see the actor enter the Fast And Furious franchise with the 2012 release of F9.

Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes)

One of the biggest shocks of Season 8 of The Walking Dead was the early departure of Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes from the series when Rick's son was bitten by a walker, ending his run in the process. Fans and stars of the show were equally as shocked by former showrunner Scott Gimple's choice of killing off one of the central characters, but no one took it as bad as Riggs' father who had some choice words for Gimple after his son was written off the show. In 2019, the former The Walking Dead star was cast as Patrick "PJ" Nelson on the ABC drama, A Million Little Things, which was renewed in March 2020.

Sonequa Martin-Green

Sonequa Martin-Green  originally auditioned for the role of Michonne in The Walking Dead. Though the part ended up going to Danai Gurira, Martin-Green snagged the part of Sasha. She recurred on the series in Season 3 and was bumped up to a series regular in The Walking Dead's fourth season. Like many of her other former cast-members, Martin-Green's character had a very memorable exit. After her departure from The Walking Dead, Martin-Green took a starring role in the CBS All Access series, Star Trek: Discovery. She's also expected to appear in Space Jam: A New Legacy in 2021.

David Morrissey (Philip "The Governor" Blake)

Before the introduction of Negan, there was no character more dastardly or deadly than David Morrissey's portrayal of Philip "The Governor" Blake" starting in Season 3 of The Walking Dead. Like many of the characters featured in both the comic and television series, The Governor suffered a violent death during the Season 4 midseason finale. Since leaving The Walking Dead, Morrissey has gone on to have roles in Inside No. 9, the Amazon series Good Omens, and the upcoming Dampyr adaptation.

Lennie James (Morgan Jones)

Morgan Jones, portrayed by the great Lennie James, was one of the first characters Rick Grimes meets in Season 1 of The Walking Dead, and the character showed up several more times over subsequent seasons before becoming a member of the main cast starting in Season 6. And despite dying in Season 8, Morgan had the rare distinction of showing up in the spinoff series Fear The Walking Dead, where James remains as a series regular. In addition to The Walking Dead universe, James has shown up in films like Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.

Those are just a few of former The Walking Dead stars that have gone on to continue their careers in film, television, and elsewhere in recent years. I'm sure whenever the show returns, we can expect to see more characters and actors on this list. If you want to know which former castmember hasn't watched the AMC series, you can check that out here on CinemaBlend.

Fear the Walking Dead ended Season 5 on a vastly dour note for all of the protagonists, most of whom got separated from one another by Colby Minifie's Virginia and her group of Pioneers. That wasn't exactly the case for Morgan, however. He was shot and left to be walker food by Virginia, and the finale ended on him sharing a radio message for the others to "just live." Fans have debated Morgan's survival chances, and Lennie James has offered an update that is both cryptic and worrisome.

The fact that Fear the Walking Dead even kept Morgan's fate open for debate made it seem likely that he will be heading down the road to recuperation whenever Season 6 arrives. Lennie James spoke with NME about Morgan's future and he offered a fully expected "can't say anything just yet" answer. However, when the actor was asked if he missed starring on The Walking Dead proper, his response was a rather ominous and bothersome one.

Considering no one had brought up The Walking Dead giving fans its take on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, it's a bit strange that Lennie James would automatically assume that it could only be Morgan's ghost that would return to The Walking Dead. Why wouldn't he be able to travel back and visit the flagship series' characters in a way that wouldn't necessitate him dying and existing in a non-corporeal form?

The only answer that really makes any sense, of course, is that Morgan Jones is definitely going to die soon on Fear the Walking Dead, even if it might not happen in the premiere. After all, it's absolutely believable that showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg would figure out a way to keep Morgan alive through the first episode back, only to kill him off after that point.

Even if another surprise character swooped in right at the nick of time in order to save Morgan from the walkers coming for a chow-down, it would probably still take some kind of medical professional to reverse the effects of his gunshot wounds. It's not completely out of the realm of possibilities, but it's a stretch.

Compare the earlier answer to how Lennie James responded when asked directly about Morgan's fate after the Season 5 finale cliffhanger:

Considering Lennie James is going to be doing all kinds of promotional work for Fear the Walking Dead Season 6, I certainly hope Morgan is alive for at least part of the season. Otherwise, the actor is going to be making up a lot of answers that won't be very placating for the fanbase.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 currently doesn't have a release date set, and the spinoff's Texas-based production was shut down along with the rest of the industry here in the U.S. We do know that the plan is to air the season after the Walking Dead: World Beyond spinoff airs its first of two seasons; that show's premiere date was delayed to a currently unknown point in the future.

Check out our TV finale rundown for all the other shows that might be dropping cliffhanger endings soon, and then our Summer 2020 TV premiere schedule will clue fans in on what other premieres are currently confirmed for the future.

WARNING! Major spoilers below for the Season 5 finale of Fear the Walking Dead.

The Season 5 finale of Fear the Walking Dead pulled off one of the most potentially unspeakable acts within the Walking Dead universe, and in a manner that calls back to one of the franchise's most controversial moments (the dreaded Glenngate). In the final moments of "End of the Line," the newest villain Virginia vindictively set up Morgan's potential death, shooting him and leaving him to either bleed out or become zombie chow. But the episode's credits rolled seemingly seconds before the approaching zombie herd reached him, leaving his fate undetermined.

For any fans hoping that showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg would grant conclusive answers about whether Morgan is going to die or not, there isn't much ripe fruit on that vine. Here's one way in which Chambliss teased things:

The fact that Andrew Chambliss calls this Morgan's "final" message could be worth reading into, but he probably worded it that way for ease's sake. In any case, the point is that the showrunners dropped that shocking AF cliffhanger on viewers with the express notion that answers about Morgan's fate would be walled off for the fall and winter.

It's not a rare move to pull off in 2019 TV, but considering The Walking Dead franchise's bad luck with killer cliffhangers, one might have expected the creative team to find a way to close out Morgan's Season 5 arc without causing so much worry and stress for Fear's vocal fanbase. Especially the ones who have followed Lennie James' trek as Morgan ever since The Walking Dead's series premiere.

Why Fear The Walking Dead's Lennie James Regrets Leaving The Walking Dead When He Did

It would seem the only way that Morgan could be saved is if someone swiftly dropped in and took out the walkers that were closing in on him. Luckily – if one can use that word to describe scripted events – Virginia wasn't able to get her second shot off in Morgan's face, and her first shot apparently didn't strike him in the most lethal spot.

During an interview with Insider, Andrew Chambliss specifically stated that Morgan was shot in the shoulder, and not the heart as some fans suspected. When asked to clarify that point, Ian Goldberg said this:

With that answer, the co-showrunner is possibly implying that even if Morgan does manage to somehow get rescued from those walkers at the very last second, his gunshot wound is still going to be a source of major trouble. Perhaps June would be able to do something with it, but she's been taken away to one of Virginia's outposts, and it's unclear if she or anyone else will ever see Morgan again.

This is the kind of cliffhanger that Fear the Walking Dead almost definitely wouldn't have tried to pull off had AMC not already renewed the struggling drama for Season 6 months ago. But with the security that a new season is on the way, the creative team found an interesting, if frustrating, way to cap off its fifth year while setting up branching storylines for the future. It's going to be a long eight or nine months from now until Season 6 starts up, but can Morgan's fate possibly remain a secret for that long?

Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 is complete now, with the most recent episodes available to stream on AMC's website. For everyone looking for more zombie mayhem, The Walking Dead Season 10 starts up on Sunday, October 6, at 9:00 p.m. ET.

Major spoilers below, so be sure to watch Fear the Walking Dead's finale before reading.

Throughout Fear the Walking Dead's fifth season, the protagonists have mostly maintained the single-minded goal of saving and/or helping anyone who needed it. Their efforts were successful at times, and Morgan and Alicia amassed a group of over 40 survivors before coming to a troublesome crossroads with Virginia and the Pioneers. Unfortunately for the group, and for fans of star Lennie James, Fear the Walking Dead's Season 5 finale seemingly killed off O.G. survivor Morgan Jones.

For a quick refresher, Morgan and some others believed that turning to Virginia for help at Humbug's Gulch would be the only way to keep everyone alive and safe, despite the semi-villain's track record. And in the end, after everyone was split up and taken to different Pioneer outposts, Virginia revealed her plan to kill Morgan right there in the tourist attraction. After getting one shot off that put Morgan down, Virginia's follow-up shot backfired, so she left Morgan as food for an incoming herd of walkers.

As it sometimes goes in this universe, though, viewers did not actually watch Morgan die, thus leaving the possibility open that he will somehow avoid death between now and the Season 6 premiere in 2020. His final radio message to everyone certainly implied that he wouldn't be around to offer any more soft-spoken guidance in the future, but why would Fear the Walking Dead's showrunners choose this narrative route to end Morgan's story? Let's discuss some things.

Virginia Hasn't Earned The Right To Kill Morgan

While I do indeed enjoy Colby Minifie as the doom-harboring antagonist Virginia, she's only been around for a few episodes, and definitely hasn't proven herself to be worthy of taking out such an important character within the Walking Dead franchise. As well, I don't really enjoy that Morgan consciously and purposefully called for his own Harbinger of Death in such a way. (Not that he fully grasped all of Virginia's motives at first, but still.)

Morgan has managed to survive some mighty freaky close calls in the post-apocalypse, to the point where it seemed like it would take a major force of nature to finally take him and his current hopeful streak out for good. Instead, the creative team introduced a backstory-lite villain to do the deed, with the help of a group of insatiable zombies. I don't quite buy it, although I'm not sure how things would get reversed from there. (More on that below.)

Morgan And Grace's Relationship Just Got Interesting

Everyone saw it coming a million miles away, but Morgan and Grace at last voiced their feelings for one another in the Season 5 finale. With Al's help, Morgan had only recently found some closure over losing his wife and son, allowing him to recognize and embrace his attraction and affection for Grace. She initially didn't want to address it all, but both Morgan and Grace each had their big confessional moments in the closer, giving fans hope for their future together.

Shockingly, it was revealed in the final minutes that Grace's health problems apparently weren't being caused by radiation poisoning at all. She's pregnant, and has been for months! (Not for Morgan, of course, but I'd guess for the previously referred to man that she'd gotten romantic with.) It had to have been a blow to Morgan's guts to hear that Grace isn't doomed, since that would give him even more of a reason to survive. No amount of candy beanies would help his situation.

Does This Mean Morgan And Rick Don't Reunite?

One of The Walking Dead's longest lasting relationship has been the kinship between Morgan and Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes, and the last time Lincoln shared the screen with Lennie Jones was for Fear the Walking Dead's Season 4 premiere, which was Morgan's introduction to the spinoff's world. Of course, most fans are aware that Rick got ousted from The Walking Dead in Season 9, just prior to the announcement that Lincoln would be headlining a trio of Rick-centric features that will assumedly close out that character's story.

Considering Danai Gurira will also be exiting The Walking Dead in Season 10 to assumedly later show up in the Rick flicks, it seemed entirely possible that Scott Gimple & Co. would figure out a way to get Rick and Morgan together again for at least one more conversation. But unless Isabelle from Indiana and her helicopter are about to drop Rick off at Humbug's Gulch, the chances of their reunion happening are looking pretty dismal, and Morgan doesn't even know about Jadis' possibly well-meaning Rick-napping, which can be either a positive or a negative.

Could Sherry Save Morgan?

The finale, titled "End of the Line," drifted off in the most dour manner possible, stripping away so much of the optimism that Morgan had built up over the course of the past two seasons. It left little room for anything but a deus ex machina to come in and extend Morgan's shelf life. Could that miracle savior come in the form of the long-missing love of Dwight's life, Sherry?

It would be a fitting way to push things forward on the Dwight and Sherry front. Morgan and John (and the rest) gave Dwight a new reason to live, even in the face of Sherry's request for him not to keep looking. And the finale started with Dwight thinking he heard Sherry on the radio, so it's certainly plausible that she's in the immediate area, and totally understandable that she wouldn't have wanted to show herself whenever Virginia and others were still around. Barring her reappearance – or perhaps a Breaking Bad crossover involving a machine gun in a car trunk – Morgan's survival is very unlikely.

Wait, Is Alicia Safe From Radiation Poisoning Now?

Since Morgan's death has been a longstanding possibility in The Walking Dead universe for a long time now, his situation was arguably less surprising than the reveal that Grace has been pregnant and malnourished all this time, and not knocking on death's door. I kind of expected the pregnancy, even in a show like this, but not the reversal of fortunes. So what does that reveal mean for Alicia, who has also been under the impression that her days were more numbered than usual?

If neither Grace nor Alicia is actually infected, then what was the point of all that? Alternately, does Grace's good news make it even more likely that Alicia will be the one who ends up dying from it?

Fear the Walking Dead was already renewed for Season 6 earlier this year, with the plan being that the story would get changed up completely by the end of Season 5. That certainly happened, with Morgan possibly dying and the rest of the protagonists being split up. Here's hoping some big reveals arrive earlier than usual, so that we're not stuck worrying about Morgan all through the fall and winter.

2019 Fall TV Premiere Schedule: Dates For New And Returning Shows

Though Fear the Walking Dead is now finished airing in 2019, AMC has more undead mayhem on the way with the premiere of The Walking Dead Season 10, which kicks off on Sunday, October 6, at 9:00 p.m. ET.

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Over its first five seasons, Fear The Walking Dead has slowly but surely started interconnecting the universes between its show and AMC’s flagship zombie series The Walking Dead. More recently, the show has made headlines bringing in two characters from the original series: Morgan and Dwight.

While the two actors, Lennie James and Austen Amelio, shared a show together previously, apparently they never actually shared a scene while they were on The Walking Dead. It took until they filmed their first scene on Fear The Walking Dead to actually speak words together on the small screen!

While at San Diego Comic-Con this year, Lennie James told the whole story, revealing,

You’d think while filming with an ensemble cast, the writers would enjoy finding ways to bring different characters together, but given the constant movement and change of geographical locations on both The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead, it’s actually fairly easy to see how two popular characters might not do any chit-chatting onscreen.

Luckily for both, Fear The Walking Dead has more recently prioritized bringing in characters and Easter eggs from The Walking Dead universe in order to further the “merging” of characters from both shows.

Executive producers Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg also spoke out during Fear The Walking Dead’s Hall H panel about the merging of the two worlds, noting it’s been a continued focus for the series. Ian Goldberg also talked to the audience about the "cool thing" about intertwining both worlds, noting,

Sometimes it's hard for television shows and movies that are a part of larger franchises to figure out how to connect to the larger universe while still being unique and growing in an original direction. Fortunately, Fear The Walking Dead has been able to find that balance by incorporating the right number of characters and the right number of references. As a result, Morgan and Dwight finally sharing the same scene feels not only warranted but sensible.

You can catch both The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead on AMC.

The Walking Dead's first zombie apocalypse bromance was Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Morgan Jones (Lennie James). They lost touch after Morgan saved Rick's life in the pilot episode, but Rick tried to keep updating Morgan through a walkie-talkie. Morgan briefly returned to the story in Season 3, then returned in a more stable mental condition through Season 5 cameos. Those cameos showed Morgan is pretty amazing at tracking Rick through the apocalypse -- following the Grimes family from Atlanta, Georgia to Alexandria, Virginia.

So when a fan at 2019 SDCC's Fear the Walking Dead panel asked Lennie James what Morgan would do if he knew The Walking Dead's Rick Grimes was actually missing right now, James knew just what his character would do:

Lennie James' Morgan was a main character through The Walking Dead Season 6-8, but left at the end of Season 8. He traveled west and joined the spinoff Fear the Walking Dead.  So Morgan wasn't around for the Walking Dead Season 9 events that led to Rick's disappearance. Rick is presumed dead, but the audience knows he's still alive -- and Andrew Lincoln will be getting his own TV movies on AMC continuing Rick's story.

I agree that Morgan would go out looking for Rick. But that's also what Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) tried to do. Would Morgan have better luck than Daryl and Michonne? Morgan has talked about returning to Alexandria, but that hasn't happened yet on Fear the Walking Dead -- and now The Walking Dead has time-jumped six years forward from Rick's disappearance.

I was disappointed by Morgan's role on The Walking Dead, once he reunited with Rick in Alexandria. I wanted them to be a team again, but the show was more interested in having them clash over different kill philosophies, and then had them spend more time with other characters.

Last year, Lennie James opened up on how Rick's exit could impact Morgan. That was after we knew Andrew Lincoln would be leaving The Walking Dead but before we knew that Rick wouldn't actually die. James said the connection between Rick and Morgan will last for life between those two men, however long that life is.

Now Morgan is a series regular character on Fear the Walking Dead. He joined the cast in Season 4 and remains there through the current Season 5, which also recently added fellow TWD alum Austin Amelio as Dwight. The Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 midseason finale, "Is Anybody Out There?" airs this Sunday, July 21 with Fear then taking a mini break and returning on August 11. The Walking Dead Season 10 premieres Sunday, October 6 on AMC.

No one will ever mistake Fear the Walking Dead for a network sitcom, but the zombie drama will continue to mold its tonal approach in a more light-hearted direction for Season 5 this summer. The series was arguably lacking enough chuckle-worthy moments in its first seasons, but Season 4's revised mix of characters unexpectedly allowed for more levity with wry humor, sometimes of the gallows variety.

When CinemaBlend and a few other outlets visited the set of Fear the Walking Dead during Season 5's production, some of the actors talked excitedly about how the upcoming episodes will keep shifting the tone in new ways. Note: more laughter doesn't mean zero horror and mayhem, but it does mean there's a more noticeable balance.

Here's what each Fear the Walking Dead star told us.

Jenna Elfman (June)

A veteran of comedy series such as Dharma and Greg and 1600 Penn, Jenna Elfman is just one of several current Fear the Walking Dead stars to be more widely known for making people laugh. Though her character was hyper-intense through most of Season 4 as she guarded her true identity from others, June will be more relaxed and hopeful in Season 5 with John Dorie by her side.

Here, Jenna Elfman talks about how Season 5 will expand on lightening the tone at times.

If you spend all day running around, killing zombies and trying to save other people, one's emotions are going to be heightened. So if weirdly timed jokes aren't bubbling over from the pressure, then people might start to crack. This environment is not one in which unstable minds are the most optimal.

I personally prescribe to the notion of laughter being a highly successful medicine in times of crisis. And Jenna Elfman clearly has the same approach. She continued:

Elfman went on to say that it would be something of a lie against humanity to portray these kinds of situations on TV without showing the more humane moments of levity. So long as Season 5 doesn't start killing off main characters right away, fans might find more reasons to smile, too.

Lennie James (Morgan)

In contrast to the endless warmth in actor Lennie Jones' smile, Morgan Jones has at times been one of the most solemn survivors of the post-apocalypse, flipping between manic and passive phases. Morgan's been on a calm streak for Fear the Walking Dead, thankfully, and Jones echoed Jenna Elfman's thoughts about how the show's humor and other tonal shifts are reflective of real life.

To be sure, Lennie James did start off deadpanning that co-stars Mo Collins and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell don't make him laugh, and that working with them is a nightmare. That's obviously not the reality of the situation, evidenced best by James' hearty laughs.

Reflecting on Season 4, Lennie James talks about former co-star Aaron Stanford's stint standing out as a way the show excelled at altering the tone with a new situation.

Lots of other new situations are coming to Season 5, with the first episode featuring a plane crash. (Yes, Fear star and Lost vet Maggie Grace is well aware that her characters are not always lucky with flying.) So Morgan & Co. will need to keep their spirits up in order to learn more about the people they're trying to help, because there will be complications.

Colman Domingo (Strand)

Fear the Walking Dead's Victor Strand has long been a favorite among fans for his humorously caustic attitude, and star Colman Domingo says that isn't going away in Season 5. However, the show's tonal changes will indeed have an effect on Strand. Here's how Domingo explained the increase in mirth.

Maybe we shouldn't expect Strand to develop any vaudeville routines in Fear the Walking Dead Season 5, but viewers might see him shedding some of the layers he'd built up over the years as a form of protection. He might just become the most vulnerable version of Strand we've seen yet.

Colman Domingo got back behind the camera for a Season 5 episode that he said was meant to embrace the full spectrum of human moments.

Fans will have to wait and see what Colman Domingo has in store with the episode he helmed, but we can expect it to come a little deeper into Season 5. Before then, viewers will get to meet a few new characters, including one played by Legacies vet Karen David.

Thankfully, the wait for Season 5 is just about to end, with Fear the Walking Dead's new episodes hitting AMC on Sunday, June 2, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Bring on the Dwight!

Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 marks Lennie James' second year as a leading force within the Walking Dead spinoff, and the effect his character Morgan Jones has had on the other survivors can't be denied. He's taking on more leadership roles within the group for Season 5, and will try spinning things in more hopeful directions in the future. In order to get into that headspace, James' Morgan looked back to both Andrew Lincoln's M.I.A. Rick Grimes and John Carroll Lynch's Eastman.

Earlier this year, CinemaBlend and a few other outlets were invited to the Austin, Texas set of Fear the Walking Dead, where a pleasantly acerbic Lennie James talked about Morgan reaching a social and philanthropic crossroads that sets up the characters' mission-based lifestyle in Season 5. In his words:

Though Morgan's wisdom-gaining time with Eastman was more opportunistic on a smaller scale for his then-current situation, Rick was far more prolific when it came to pulling Morgan back from the edge of complete disrepair. Their relationship is technically the oldest one on in The Walking Dead TV show, not counting Morgan and his son Duane.

Rick's more moralistic line of thought got radically altered by Negan's arrival, though it later got shocked back into place by Carl's death. In any case, the lessons he learned from both men amounted to the same thing: it's better to aid people than to hurt them. Here, Lennie James shares how Morgan aims to act on his former friends' guidance.

Season 4 introduced the character Polar Bear (real name: Clayton), who made it his mission to deliver packages of goods and supplies to certain highway mile markers. Despite the efforts of the villainous Martha to destroy the concept of goodwill and cooperative support, Morgan & Co. were able to move past them for a chance to rebuild hope and confidence in any other survivors they come across in the world.

Though Rick Grimes has often necessarily been suspicious about new faces showing up out of the blue, he often welcomed them in the end. So long as they didn't kill his friends in the name of Negan, that is. Eastman was clearly the same way, though seemingly to a much smaller extent. For Season 5, Lennie James' Morgan seems to be putting aside even mild suspicions when taking on these new missions. That's probably not going to go so well at some point.

Fear The Walking Dead Characters Go Into Avengers Mode In Season 5 Video

Of course, after this many years into the apocalypse, and after all the things that Morgan has been through, perhaps the character deserves to have conviction in his sense of self-preservation. He's still here, after all, while billions of other people are not. Here, Lennie James talks about how living through the apocalypse has become an intuitive experience for Morgan Fear the Walking Dead's group.

Forming practical security checks and systems is also something that partly comes from the world of Rick Grimes and the other communities. In Alexandria and Hilltop, perimeters are still heavily monitored both for random walkers and for legitimate big bads, and procedures get way more complicated and stringent whenever the characters are in nature and outside protective walls.

In theory, coming across a group that utilizes practiced strategies and displays resourcefulness would be an ideal situation for a random survivor. The changing world hardened people in many ways, though, so it's also easy to be extremely skeptical about anyone freely offering assistance and supplies in the post-apocalypse. It doesn't help that Strand, Charlie and June have all shown various signs of untrustworthiness in the past, not that outsiders would know that right away.

Speaking of outsiders, Fear the Walking Dead will re-introduce Austin Amelio's Dwight to the franchise when he appears at some point in Season 5. It's assumed he'll still be looking for Sherry, though the details behind his arrival are still unclear. One thing's for sure, though: there's no way Morgan will be able to look at Dwight without thinking about Rick and everyone back at the Virginia communities, which will hopefully be like a philosophical perpetual motion machine.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 will premiere on AMC on Sunday, June 2, at 9:00 p.m. ET, followed by the series premiere of the new horror drama NOS4A2, developed from Joe Hill's novel by former Fear the Walking Dead writer-producer Jami O'Brien. Also, stay tuned for even more stories from our FTWD set visit.

The Walking Dead will soon be going into its change-filled ninth year, having already delivered eight seasons worth of gore-filled and emotionally fraught episodes. With all the iconic moments that have gone down -- from that disgusting well-walker to the Govenor's last stand to Carl's big death -- it's understandable that putting the show together hasn't been the most easy-breezy experience for all involved, and the show's stars have faced quite a lot of challenges as the years have gone by, with many yet to come. (Not for everyone, obviously.)

Several of the show's biggest stars, such as Lauren Cohan and Norman Reedus, recently shared the biggest challenges that they've tackled within the Walking Dead universe, and there were definitely some intriguing answers in the bunch. Let's kick things off with the soon-to-be-departing Cohan herself.

Lauren Cohan

Joining the show in Season 2 as the matronly Maggie Greene, Lauren Cohan has experienced as much developmental growth as any other lead character, and has arguably faced the largest number of tragedies. All of the Greene family members that survived up until Team Family's arrival at the farm later perished, and even when Maggie managed to find new happiness elsewhere, it was ripped away from her just as quickly. When speaking to press during San Diego Comic-Con, the actress revealed that it was indeed Glenn's murder during Negan's two-part introduction that serves as her biggest challenge on the show so far.

Had The Walking Dead compacted Negan's first appearance into just a single episode, it would still have been a hell of an emotional jolt for Lauren Cohan, who had to say goodbye to her TV beau Steven Yeun after years as one of TV's most popular couples. But no, the chaotic scene was split across a finale AND a premiere, putting all the actors through months of mental turmoil as they maintained their fractured headspaces while waiting for Season 8 to start production. That, on top of having to keep the mystery murders a secret from an ever-inquiring fanbase, would have been a formidable challenge for any Walking Dead star. Will Cohan's final episode (for now) be as hard to put together?

Lennie James

As one of the only remaining Walking Dead stars who was part of the pilot episode, Lennie James has had a uniquely sporadic connection to this world, and he's also the only actor to have made a full crossover transition over to the follow-up Fear the Walking Dead. When speaking with CinemaBlend to promote The Walking Dead's Season 8 Blu-ray and DVD release, James talked about Morgan's various mental states across his span on the show, which had only amounted to a small handful of episodes before he became a series regular in Season 6. When asked about his biggest challenge in The Walking Dead-verse, the actor explained that it has been making sure Morgan has essentially remained Morgan all this time. Here's his answer:

That's completely understandable, since Morgan's various moods could amount to completely different characters, so it's to the actor's credit that he remains so popular with fans. There are plenty of ways for his various arcs to have landed with a loud thud. Outside of character-based challenges, Lennie James did talk about how crazy and complicated the approach was when Season 8 was coming together, since the All Out War against big bad Negan required a lot of big stunt sequences and a lot of running around in different locations. In particular, the actor was extremely non-fond of the big hill where the big battle took place in the season finale.

Danai Gurira

It was back in Season 3 when Danai Gurira joined The Walking Dead as the live-action version of fan-favorite comic book badass Michonne. The TV iteration has been just as beloved to viewers, and some of the character's most memorable moments have involved Gurira going to some pretty emotional places. For instance, when the past came back to haunt Michonne in Season 4, and she broke down after an impressive walker-slaughter. Or Gurira's scenes with Chandler Riggs in Season 8 surrounding Carl's death. And it is indeed an emotionally daunting sequence that she offered up as her biggest Walking Dead challenge, but it's one that fans haven't seen yet. Here's how she put it during the show's press conference at San Diego Comic-Con.

Similar to how Lauren Cohan had to keep her dread and dismay on hand while anticipating the next episode's filming, Danai Gurira was forced to retain her own uncomfortable mind-state for far longer than she would have liked. Only in this case, it was all an unplanned series of delays, with Mother Nature repeatedly pushing one scene off. Which is amusing in a way, given how weather factors so minutely in the show's narrative. But it sounds like a scene where viewers' tear ducts might open up like rain clouds, too, which almost has to involve circumstances surrounding Rick's potential death, right?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Few villains in modern fiction have been as gleefully monstrous as The Walking Dead's Negan, who quickly became one of the most iconic comic book baddies outside the superhero genre. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's casting was celebrated, though the fanbase has been split on his presence as live-action Negan ever since his first Season 6 appearance, with the character unable to be the same kind of offensive caricature with cable censors involved. Non-coincidentally, Morgan told San Diego Comic-Con press outlets that his biggest challenge so far was bringing the tyrannical leader out to play.

For me, it was probably the introduction to the character. It was technically a thing, and it was physically a thing, and it was also my first time meeting this cast. That's a hell of a way to meet a group of people that is so tight and close, and to kind of be thrown in this world of The Walking Dead by taking out two of their friends, hoping that I'd kind of be accepted by them. [laughs] And then in this season, I've gotten to do some stuff that was nothing we've seen Negan do, and I'm excited for people to see it. It was hard to play, and a challenge that was super cool.

Still ranking as the newcomer among this group of Walking Dead cast members, Jeffrey Dean Morgan has two mostly connected answers there. Initially, he had the multi-headed challenge of bringing Negan to life in such a violent and polarizing fashion in Season 6, which affected both the actor and the character. And then he'll apparently be quite different in Season 9, which will pick up after a big time jump, so the actor will technically be getting a chance to reintroduce audiences to a more tempered Negan, which obviously presents its own series of obstacles. TV viewers aren't always the most forgiving when it comes to change.

Norman Reedus

While he hasn't been a Walking Dead presence from its earliest days, Norman Reedus' Daryl Dixon first appeared in the series' third episode, and has made quite a mark as the crossbow-wielding loner. Reedus' proficiency with motorcycles makes Daryl's road scenes easy as pie for the actor, so those definitely weren't part of his biggest challenge as a cast member. Nor did it have anything to do with that rocket launcher or losing Beth or anything else that viewers have already laid their peepers on. Speaking with press at San Diego Comic-Con, Reedus explained that his hardest moments came while filming an upcoming installment, and that Andrew Lincoln was involved.

For me, it was this year. Episode 4 of this season was one that, Andy and I have a scene in that episode that is fucking epic. It was really well-written and we worked on it, and we really fine-tuned it and got it to a place where it became sort of effortless and could have gone in so many different directions. But I think both of us will be proud of that.

Going by those purposefully vague words, it's hard to glean what kind of scene we'll be seeing when Episode 4 gets here. I mean, we're still not quite sure what the season premiere will deliver. The moment that Norman Reedus describes could amount to a large-scale physical challenge, if the "epic" nature of the scene is in reference to an action sequence needing specific and extensive choreography, or something along those lines. On the emotional hand, it could be a scene where Rick gets bitten by a walker, putting the two actors through a roller coaster of sadness and despair. We can't wait to see which one it ends up being.

Expect The Walking Dead universe to stick around AMC for many more years, presenting many more cast members with many more challenges. As far as Season 9 goes, it'll make its extended-runtime debut on AMC on Sunday, October 7, at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see what other new and returning shows will be clamoring for your attention soon, head to our fall TV premiere schedule.

Morgan Jones has an exceptionally tragic backstory in the Walking Dead franchise, even by zombie apocalypse standards. His experiences took a severe toll on his mental health, and his journey from The Walking Dead to Fear the Walking Dead seemed decidedly ill-fated. He hasn't died yet, however, and he's continued his tendency to try and act as a father figure to characters. CinemaBlend's Nick Venable chatted with Lennie James about Morgan potentially having kids again someday after Duane's death, and James said this:

For Morgan, there is a difference between acting as a father figure to somebody and actually being somebody's father. Lennie James' comments indicate that Morgan having children of his own again goes hand-in-hand with Morgan falling in love again. A lot of the trauma that altered Morgan stems from how he lost his family. As if it wasn't bad enough that his wife died at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, he and his son had to watch her shamble around as they tried to stay safe indoors. Then, Duane was bitten by his zombie mom after he was unable to shoot her and put her down. Poor, poor Morgan. Can he find love again?

On the pro side, Rick was able to find love again with Michonne, even if that love story is going to come to an end at some point in the first half of Season 9. Carol apparently started up a romance of her own during the time jump, and she and Morgan were paralleled in many ways. If Rick's relationship with Michonne works after the death of Carl and Carol was able to recover from Sophia enough to start something up with Ezekiel, why not Morgan with somebody he meets on Fear the Walking Dead or after a potential return to The Walking Dead?

On the con side, Morgan may have stepped up as a father figure, but he hasn't really seemed ready to dip his toe back into the zombie apocalypse dating pool, so to speak. Rick and Carol were both settled in one place with the same people for a fair amount of time before they were able to start romances again, and neither has shown any inclinations so far to have more children of their own. Morgan may be better off if he doesn't try to start another family, as sad as that is. Still, we can be sure that Lennie James would nail that arc.

We'll have to wait and see. People are going to need to start making babies if if humanity is going to survive the zombie apocalypse, and the Walking Dead franchise almost certainly isn't going anywhere any time soon. Maybe love and biological fatherhood really is in the future for Morgan.

You can see Morgan in action in new episodes of Fear the Walking Dead on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. He's shown interest in returning to Alexandria, and Lennie James dropped some intriguing comments about Morgan's reaction to the absence of Rick, so we can cross our fingers and hope that James pops back up on The Walking Dead. To find out for yourself, tune in to AMC on Sunday, October 7 at 9 p.m. ET to catch the Season 9 premiere of The Walking Dead. For some non-zombie apocalypse options, take a look at our fall TV guide.

The Walking Dead has gone through many changes in everything from cast to location to time period over the years, but no change will likely be as significant as the show moving on without Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes. Lincoln confirmed his upcoming departure earlier this summer, and fans will need to spend the next couple of months pondering how it will happen. Lennie James, who plays Morgan on The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, recently weighed in on how Rick's exit will impact Morgan:

Although Morgan hasn't been a regular on The Walking Dead from the beginning and actually went a couple of seasons without appearing, he was arguably the first major character to play a role on the show after Rick. Without Morgan, Rick would have undoubtedly died shortly after making his escape from the hospital. The two have been close allies at times while on opposite sides of the zombie apocalypse spectrum at others, and fans could choose who they wanted to root for. Would you stay behind or go on an unlikely rescue mission to Atlanta? Would you embrace pacifism or violence? Would you favor a stick or a revolver?

Fear the Walking Dead's midseason finale revealed that Morgan has his eye on returning to Alexandria; assuming he makes it, he'll find a very different settlement than the one he left behind almost two years ago, taking the time jump into account. Negan and the Saviors won't be the big threat anymore as the Whisperers enter the scene with Alpha at the head. If he does return to Alexandria, he may not make it in time to say goodbye to his first zombie apocalypse friend.

A lot likely depends on how Rick takes his leave of Alexandria. If he goes on a Morgan-esque walkabout in the zombie apocalypse, they could cross paths on the road. If Rick dies -- as we consider fairly likely in our compilation of awesome theories about his exit -- Morgan might never reunite with Rick, which will undoubtedly add an extra layer of tragedy. Personally, I would like to see how the two men interact now that Rick will truly be able to understand what Morgan went through after losing his son. Lennie James went on in his chat with Screen Rant to say this about how the absence of Rick could be especially profound for Morgan if he makes the long journey north:

From his comments, Lennie James seems to indicate that he didn't get to work with Andrew Lincoln again before Lincoln wrapped on The Walking Dead, but we don't necessarily have to give up on the possibility. It's not like James could spoil such a huge plot twist when The Walking Dead won't even premiere until October! If Lincoln sticks around until the midseason finale, we likely won't need to say goodbye to Rick until December.

For now, you can catch Lennie James in the zombie apocalypse when new episodes of Fear the Walking Dead air on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. For when The Walking Dead's Season 9 premiere will hit the airwaves (along with a bunch of other promising shows), check out our fall TV premiere guide.

When it comes to TV villains, few out there can fittingly stand toe to toe with The Walking Dead's Negan, and not just because the big bad has blood and guts all over the toes of his boots. A character that fans hate to love, and vice versa, Negan has made quite an impact in his time on the AMC drama, and when speaking to CinemaBlend about The Walking Dead's Season 8 Blu-ray, franchise star Lennie James spoke with CinemaBlend about why Lucille's owner is such a great villain.

First and foremost, let's all agree that as strong as Negan is as a character in the comics, his TV magnificence is wholly tied to Jeffrey Dean Morgan's exuberant swagger in the role. The leather jacket, coupled with the rest of his usual costume, only adds to the badassery aesthetic. Though realistically, Negan could be wearing footsie pajamas and a helicopter beanie and would still come across as a bulldozer of intimidation.

A sadistic bully with more charisma than most survivors had even before walkers took over the planet, Negan saves himself from being a next-level monster by keeping himself grounded in the belief that he's not the evil tyrant in any of these situations. Yes, he very much intentionally murdered Glenn and Abraham (and Spencer and Emmett and Simon and others), but he did these things only after those people betrayed him in major ways. I mean, it's not Negan's fault that there aren't any real forms of authority and punishment anymore, right?

To extend that point, Lennie James spoke a bit further about how easy it would be for viewers to flip opinions about The Walking Dead's true antagonists, since all one would need to do is just pick up on the narrative during Season 7 or 8, instead of back when Rick woke up from his coma. In James' words:

Of course, no one in Team Family's ranks gets quite as loquacious about things as Negan does, so just listening to him for a while would be all the real proof one needed about how morally respectable the character actually is.

Relive all of the havoc of the All Out War when The Walking Dead: The Complete Eighth Season hits Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday, August 21. Fans will be able to learn even more about those twisted final moments between Negan and Rick thanks to the cast and crew commentary track for the finale. And there are more commentaries and a handful of behind-the-scenes features delving into bringing the War to TV, Carl's death, and more.

Once you're done with Season 8's mayhem, stay tuned for The Walking Dead's cast-depleting Season 9, which will debut on AMC on Sunday, October 7, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Our fall premiere schedule will help you find all the new and returning shows you can get into watching soon.

It seemed like a major pop culture no-brainer when The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead brought their universes together for a Morgan-tethered crossover. Actor Lennie James revealed that part of the motivation there was to bring more focus and attention to the character on the series that could actually allow it, while also hinting that Morgan's story may end sooner than we might have expected. Here's how James put it:

Twice in those quotes given during Comic-Con Honoloulu (via the Star-Advertiser), Lennie James seems to be implying that Morgan's future within the live-action franchise may be limited. It sounds like the star and the creative teams had story beats and angles to nail down with Morgan, which would have taken too long to get to on the flagship series. But by making him one of the main characters within Season 4 of Fear the Walking Dead, the franchise's powers-that-be were able to explore the character's solitude and presumed reawakening to the power of communities, as seen in the opening minutes of the midseason premiere.

Why would they need to get more Morgan story into a shorter timespan "before he finishes?" One easy guess is that Lennie James may not see himself sticking around The Walking Dead shows for future seasons with this being his fourth year as a series regular on one series or the other. It's possible he may want to follow in Andrew Lincoln's footsteps by exiting the show to return to the U.K. on more of a full-time basis. It's also possible that he was just speaking generally by saying they would only explore him "a bit more before he finishes," but this franchise's cast and crew tend to be pretty deliberate with their words in that respect.

Even if Lennie James would leave Fear the Walking Dead and its AMC predecessor in the near future, that obviously wouldn't necessitate the character's death on either show. Lauren Cohan is taking a potentially permanent vacation from The Walking Dead in the midst of Season 9, and she has seemingly already confirmed that Maggie's absence on the show won't be due to a fatal event. Of course, if Morgan truly does intend to make it back to Alexandria and the surrounding communities, that pro-o-o-obably means he won't die in the next eight episodes of Fear the Walking Dead. Unless the whole point is that it's a trip he won't survive long enough to make. (Cue the sound of lifeless feet dragging themselves across the ground.)

Fear the Walking Dead Season 4 returns to AMC on Sunday, August 12, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Get ready to see lots of crazy weather and some rough days for Alicia. Be sure to head to our fall premiere schedule to keep current with all the other shows coming your way, both terrifying and otherwise.

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet seen Fear the Walking Dead's Season 4 premiere, as well as The Walking Dead's Season 8 finale.

After years of waiting for AMC's zombified universes to come together, fans finally got to watch The Walking Dead's world collide with Fear the Walking Dead, with Lennie James' Morgan Jones as the previously announced lead making the cross-country leap. And following the present-set cold open that introduced Garret Dillahunt's lonely pardner John Dorie, the episode jumped back into the past to add further wrap-up to The Walking Dead's Season 8 finale, with Tom Payne's Jesus, Melissa McBride's Carol and Andrew Lincoln's Rick and all making surprise appearances to add context to Morgan's journey.

No specific timestamps clued fans in on when these events were going down, but clearly the All Out War had concluded, with Team Family winning in the end. (A victory that Morgan referenced later in the episode as well.) But it was a war that nearly broke his already tenuous mental state, and he'd once against secluded himself away from other survivors, this time within Jadis' former junkyard home. (She was sent off to hoof it alone.) It was there where Jesus, Carol and Rick each tried persuading Morgan to stick around for the Savior-free future.

Rather than going big and bombastic, Jesus chose a softer approach, referencing the Walking Dead finale moments when he offered advice about only using the sharp end of his staff on the dead. As well as commenting on how he'd settled in. (Does no one hate the stench in that place?) Saying that "here and there" are just labels, Jesus appealed to Morgan's urge to protect others, which was the whole reason he became such a lethal force again as the War got more hectic. But that one didn't work.

At some later point, presumably on a different Laundry Day, it was Carol's turn to give it a shot. She wanted Morgan to return to the Kingdom with her, since that's apparently back up and corpse-free now. Carol and Morgan have seen the other in the darkest states possible, and were rarely friendly during it, so Morgan is aware of what it means for Carol to make that trip for that reason. It looked like she was about to say something else when a quick edit pushed the sequence forward, but regardless of what those words may have been, her attempt didn't work either.

"You can hide, but you can't run," was how Rick started off his interaction with Morgan, which was more than just a bit presumptuous, considering Morgan packed up and hauled off for good so soon after. Rick tried to make Morgan feel more like a hero for all that he'd done to save Rick and to help bring the world back around as a result of that. And though Morgan claimed that life wasn't for him anymore, Rick kept at it, saying that Morgan would always find his way back to other people. Rick then said he and others would just end up at his door, needing his help again, which can be considered a serious catalyst for why Morgan decided to leave the junkyard altogether. You should have just said you'd leave him alone, Rick!

Interestingly enough, Andrew Lincoln got the biggest of the Walking Dead cameos, which is to be expected, considering Rick and Morgan introduced this apocalypse to viewers. As well, Rick's conversation was the only one where Morgan's point-of-view and replies were seen and heard, with Jesus and Carol just getting the slightly apologetic lowered-head response.

Did things really end so badly that Morgan won't return in Season 9, or could that still be a possibility after the events of Fear the Walking Dead Season 4? There are a lot of episodes left to go, and a lot of trouble left to be caused, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. If nothing else, Morgan has a better shot than that dude that rudely refused Morgan's goodwill supplies (and then later turned and ended up many miles away, where Morgan could find him again).

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC, with next week's episode reverting back to the normal 9:00 p.m. ET time slot. Check out everything we learned about Maggie Grace's Althea from the star herself. To see what other shows will be making their premieres soon, with or without crossovers involved, head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer premiere schedule.

It's a very exciting time to be a fan of The Walking Dead (and really, who isn't?). The apocalyptic drama's eighth season is in the midst of all out war against Negan and The Saviors, with Fear The Walking Dead returning for its fourth season not far behind. The two shows will finally crossover shortly, as Lennie James' character Morgan will transition from the flagship series to its spinoff. It's unclear exactly how the shows will facilitate this change, or what to expect when Morgan comes face to face with Fear's protagonists. Fans are also wondering if Morgan's son Duane and late wife might pop back up, to which James himself recently responded:

It looks like it's not completely out of the question to think that Duane Jones might pop up sometime in Fear The Walking Dead. His death in many ways was the first breaking point for Morgan, and the character has never really recovered from the guilt and trauma related to that death. Now the question is: how?

Adding Duane into Fear The Walking Dead's narrative will no doubt be challenging, as the character died off camera, and the child actor has grown up in the eight year since the pilot aired. So unless Morgan was seeing a hallucination of his aged son, it doesn't look like he'll appear in the modern timeline. Perhaps instead we'll get flashbacks of Morgan's grief, as well as Duane's appearance on The Walking Dead.

Lennie James' comments, which CinemaBlend's Conner Schwerdtfeger witnessed from his participation in Fear's press conference at WonderCon, are far from a confirmation that Duane is popping up in Fear The Walking Dead. He leaves his answer purposefully vague, something he and the rest of the cast of The Walking Dead are experts at.

Lennie James also teased how Morgan would meet the Clark family from Fear The Walking Dead, and once again seemed to discredit himself in the midst of an answer. He said,

What a tease. Lennie James seems to understand how eager the fandom is to see Morgan join Fear The Walking Dead, and he's therefore toying with those sky high expectations. In the end, we'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes down.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC, and Fear The Walking Dead will premiere Season 4 on April 15, 2018. In the meantime, check out our midseason premiere list to plan your next binge watch. Plus our superhero premiere list and Amazon premiere list to ensure you don't miss a single episode.

It's a pretty exciting time to be a fan of The Walking Dead. Aside from Robert Kirkman's consistent new additions of the graphic novel, The Walking Dead and its spinoff Fear The Walking Dead are about to deliver what fans have been asking for since day one: a crossover. Physical distance and a different timeline seemed to make this an impossibility for the first three seasons of the spinoff, although Lennie James' Morgan Jones will soon transition from the flagship series onto Fear. While this announcement has left a few glaring logistical questions for the fandom to ponder, the first image of the crossover has just arrive. And Morgan is looking surprisingly sane.

It looks like Morgan's run on Fear The Walking Dead won't be just spent by him "clearing" walkers in a sweaty haze. So at least fans can rest easy in that regard.

This new image from Fear The Walking Dead, (via The Walking Dead's Twitter) is fairly cryptic, but does at least confirm where Morgan's mental capacity will lie when he makes the transition from one show to the other. Morgan, like Rick, is a character whose sanity has wavered quite a few times while attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse. When Morgan reappeared on the show in Season 3, he was an almost rabid animal. After losing his son, his sole focus was killing as many zombies and people as possible to "clear" the area.

Morgan has gone back and forth between instability and steadfast resolve quite a times during his tenure on the series, although fans seem pretty sick of both crazy Morgan and pacifist Morgan. So having the character make his way to Fear The Walking Dead will all of his facilities is probably the right call, and will allow the millions of viewers to properly enjoy the crossover moment they'd been waiting for.

EW had other sneak peek images from Morgan's debut on Fear, apparently fighting for his life against some of the dead. There is also a shot floating around of he working alongside newcomer Althea, played by Lost and Taken actress Maggie Grace. She'll be a series regular in the upcoming fourth season of Fear The Walking Dead, and perhaps Morgan will be her proxy into the main narrative of the series. Given Fear's penchant for killing off its major characters, there have been quite a few openings left in the starring cast, allowing new actors to get their shot in the zombie apocalypse.

It still remains to be seen exactly how Morgan will end up on Fear The Walking Dead, although smart money says the spinoff will need to have a substantial time jump. Additionally, there has to be a reason for Morgan to possibly depart the original series. Perhaps the war again Negan and The Saviors will be just too much for the survivor, and he'll depart after victory is won. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Walking Dead will return to AMC on February 25th, 2018. In the meantime, check out our midseason premiere list to plan your next binge watch, and our cancellation list to see how many of your favorite shows got the chop last year.

A crossover between AMC's two zombie apocalypse series has been in the works for a while, and fans had to spend weeks speculating about which character would make the jump from The Walking Dead to Fear the Walking Dead. The differences in timelines between the two shows meant that characters that were long dead on The Walking Dead could theoretically appear in the spinoff, and there was even a top contender. We recently learned that Morgan would actually be the character moving from the Walking Dead to Fear the Walking Dead, and actor Lennie James has now revealed some of what's in store for the big transition:

Lennie James only recently began filming for Fear the Walking Dead, and we can bet that he's been tasked with keeping most of the secrets he's learned so far, so we probably can't expect much more in the way of spoilers about Morgan's crossing over for a while. His comments indicate that The Walking Dead won't simply send Morgan off on a supply run around Alexandria and suddenly pop up on Fear the Walking Dead in Texas. Morgan will go on a journey that shows exactly how and why the changes in his life have to happen, even if it means leaving the group that has at least been on his peripheral (thanks to his early encounter with Rick) since almost the very beginning of the zombie apocalypse. The poor guy will apparently be more messed up than ever by the time qhe leaves for Fear the Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead has already started messing Morgan up in some new and devastating ways in Season 8. The massacre of the majority of the Kingdom's fighting forces obviously unsettled Morgan, and the way he agreed to lead the snipers in support of Daryl's crazy plan to assault the Sanctuary may point toward Morgan not having quite as much of a grip on his reactions as usual. The big midseason finale is set to air this weekend, and stars have promised that we're in for a pretty wild ride. Throw in the battle that's evidently coming as teased by the trailer, and Morgan could have his head messed with even more by the end of the episode.

Just as The Walking Dead will take its time with the thought-out transition for Morgan, Lennie James has known for a fair amount of time that the move would be happening. He went on in his chat with ComicBook.com to say this:

Lennie James spoke to everybody ranging from AMC to his family to even Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln about the possibility of making the move. A lot of consideration was clearly put into what is bound to be a big change for both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. The zombie apocalypse won't be the same on either front with/without Morgan.

You can find Morgan still in action on The Walking Dead in this Sunday's midseason finale of Season 8, which airs at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Be sure to swing by our 2018 midseason TV premiere guide for some important TV dates in the new year, and don't forget to check out our 2017 cancellation guide.

There are few shows as popular as AMC's The Walking Dead. The long running apocalyptic drama is currently in the midst of its whopping eighth season on the network, with the past two seasons revolving around the fight against Jeffrey Dean Morgan's villainous Negan. But Negan isn't the series' first major villain-- that honor goes to David Morrissey's cycloptic psycho, The Governor. That performance earned the actor a Saturn Award nomination, but turns out that he sure if he originally wanted to join the zombie apocalypse. It took another Walking Dead cast member to convince him: Lennie James, aka Morgan. James recently accounted their conversation, saying:

In addition to saving both Rick and Carol throughout his run on The Walking Dead, it looks like Morgan helped out a series villain as well. So take that, Morgan haters.

Lennie James' comments to Digital Spy prove what a small world TV is, and how often actors know each other before working on projects. James and David Morrissey had previously worked together on BBC's 90s show Out of the Blue. At the point where The Governor joined The Walking Dead, we had only known Morgan from the show's very first episode. But the character would eventually return as a series regular in the past few years, making him one of three characters to have appeared in Episode 1 that are still alive (the others being Rick and Carl).

David Morrissey and Lennie James were like passing ships during their respective times on The Walking Dead. Morgan made a surprise appearance in Season 3 episode "Clear", after Rick's battle against The Governor had started. The episode saw Michonne, Rick, and Carl go on an supply run to find weapons for the impending conflict with the villain. That's when they happened upon Morgan, who was in the midst of one of his many psychological breaks. Now if only the episode also included a scene or two of The Governor in Woodbury, the the two buddies could have actually appeared on the same episode. I'm sure their FOMO is through the roof.

Many consider Season 3 to be one of The Walking Dead's strongest outings, as David Morrissey's Governor was equal parts charming and terrifying. And now it looks like we have Lennie James to thank, as it just wouldn't have been the same with a different actor playing the role.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC. In the meantime, check out our midseason premiere list and see if your favorite show got the chop with our cancellation list.

The Walking Dead was never more brutal than in the first half of Season 7 thanks to new bad guy Negan and his handy dandy baseball bat Lucille. Morgan has been one of the few characters lucky enough to avoid even witnessing Negan's brutality so far, but actor Lennie James still was not a fan of the first half of the season. He explained why he hated it more than any other span of the show, saying this:

Although Season 7 split most of the main players up from the very first episode after Negan's bloodbath, almost all of them except for Morgan and Carol came back together by the midseason finale. Unfortunately for Lennie James, Morgan hasn't quite made it back to his pals just yet. His final scene with Carol in the midseason finale indicated that he might be heading back into the thick of the action to help in the fight against Negan, but he wasn't exactly around to join in the hug-fest with Andrew Lincoln and the rest of his fellow actors at Hilltop at the end of the episode. Still, Lennie James' explanation of why he hated the first half of Season 7 does give the impression that filming for the the second half brought him closer to the rest of the cast.

Lennie James went on in his chat with NME to elaborate that he missed his co-stars off-set as well on during filming, revealing this:

Tell us how you really feel, Lennie James! It seems that not even showrunner Scott Gimple was spared the actor's feelings toward the cast separation in the first half of Season 7. Those were bold words coming from a guy on a show that regularly kills people off. Of course, Lennie James isn't the only actor who has expressed a dislike toward the cast going their separate ways during the early episodes of Season 7. Norman Reedus spent most of his time in a dog food-stained sweatsuit in the Sanctuary far from any of his allies, and he also shared that filming was rough. Daryl was lucky enough to escape the Sanctuary and reunite with Rick and Co.; for Lennie James' sake, I hope Morgan will be next.

Luckily, we don't have too much longer to wait until The Walking Dead returns to the airwaves and gives us an update on all the characters who survived the midseason finale. The second half of Season 7 kicks off on Sunday, February 12 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Take a look at our midseason TV premiere schedule to see what else you can catch on the small screen in the coming weeks.

Since The Walking Dead aired its controversial cliffhanger finale in April, fans of the series have been theorizing as to what to expect from the upcoming seventh season of the apocalyptic drama. While much of this conversation has been based around which one(s) of the main characters perished at the hands of Negan's barbed wire bat Lucille, there are also quite a few characters who weren't in that tense final scene. Perhaps the most significant of these is Morgan and Carol, who were last scene with a mysterious new group from The Kingdom. Just prior to this, Morgan took a big step and killed a Savior in order to save Carol's life. And now that he has finally killed someone, the question is: will Morgan be willing to kill again in Season 7?

The Walking Dead's showrunner Scott M. Gimple recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly, and revealed where Morgan's head is after momentarily abandoning the philosophy which had saved his life:

There we go, people. The killing machine known as Morgan Jones is coming back in The Walking Dead's seventh season, although he doesn't seem too pleased about it.

Morgan has been one of the most complex characters in The Walking Dead's long history. First appearing in the pilot episode, Morgan became one of the fan favorites and biggest mysteries on the show, as we hoped that he and Rick would one day unite. He made occasional appearances throughout the years, displaying a mixture of stability and sanity with each episode. But when he finally became a series regular in Season 6, he had apparently tuned over yet another new leaf and sworn off killing people- despite the apocalypse and chaos around him.

This philosophy was fleshed out in last season's episode "Here's Not Here", which was a 90-minute episode focusing solely on Morgan's unseen journey. We learned how unstable and feral he was before meeting Eastmen, who taught Morgan the ways of Aikido. It was this practice which slowly returned Morgan's sanity and humanity, and explained his inability to kill- much to Carol's dismay. The conflict between these two supporting characters was particularly captivating, and it should be interesting to see how it grows now that he's killing and Carol no longer wants to.

But with the impending battle between The Saviors and the other nearby communities, Morgan's deadly skills may be needed sooner rather than later.

The Walking Dead will return to AMC on Sunday, October 23rd.

The Walking Dead spent a long time teasing the return of Morgan Jones. Not many characters get to come back on the series unless they're in the form of a zombie, but it always felt possible that he could show up out of nowhere to reunite with Rick. He finally did in the Season 5 finale, but as it turns out, he was originally intended to return in a more regular role much earlier. Showrunner Scott Gimple had this to say about the original plan to bring Lennie James back as Morgan:

I have to say, I love Scott Gimple's description of Morgan as a "gentleman" stepping out of the shadows. I immediately think of a zombie apocalypse survivor wearing a monocle and a smoking jacket, and that's just a fun image. Would it have undercut the tension of Rick and Co. being captured by cannibals? Sure. But it would have been funny.

More seriously, the reveal that Morgan almost turned up in the Season 4 finale rather than the Season 5 finale paints an interesting picture of what could have happened. Viewers already knew that Glenn and Co. would probably turn up in the train car and reunite with Rick in the worst possible circumstances. Morgan emerging from the shadows could have been a major shocker to raise the stakes. As it happens, there was a very simple reason why Morgan's grand return to the world of the zombie apocalypse didn't happen in Season 4. Scott Gimple went on in his audio commentary for the Season 6 DVDs (via EW) to explain that Lennie James just wasn't available at the time.

Season 4 was ending in 2014, which happened to be shortly after Lennie James' AMC series Low Winter Sun was cancelled. The timing could have been perfect...if only Lennie James hadn't already committed to another project. He had signed on to star in British series Critical and would not be available for another AMC series. Critical was cancelled after only fifteen episodes, which was unfortunate for fans of that show but great for Walking Dead fans who had been missing Morgan, who could now return.

Morgan appeared a couple of times in Season 5 before coming to Daryl's rescue in the finale and showing up in Alexandria in time to see Rick execute a man. He spent Season 6 as a foil to both Rick and Carol, and it looks like he might have a key role in Season 7 as Alexandria's first contact with the Kingdom. It could have worked if Morgan had joined the crew in the end of Season 4; but it definitely worked that he didn't appear until the end of Season 5.

The Walking Dead returns to the airwaves on Sunday, October 23 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Check out our breakdown of what we know so far about The Walking Dead Season 7, and take a look at our fall TV premiere schedule to see what else you'll be able to watch in the near future.

If I asked you what your favorite part of Season 6 of The Walking Dead has been so far, there’s a good chance your answer would be “watching Morgan whoop the shit out of people with his bo staff,” and you’d be right. It’s always great when these characters land on a weapon of choice, and it sounds like the stick is significant not only to Morgan but to actor Lennie James as well.

It’s not quite method acting, as it’s not like James went out and beat up a bunch of murderers before the season started – at least that’s what we assume. But it sounds like he’s completely invested in making this character an extension of himself, and making the stick an extension of both of them.

As far as how it might be symbolic of his current path, I’d think it means the bo isn’t necessarily a deadly weapon, as modern Morgan is someone who feels that all life is special and he has no urge to kill anyone these days. Now, he definitely could kill someone with it, by smashing someone’s throat in or jamming it through the back of their throat or sharpening the end of it and stabbing someone in the throat. (You might see a pattern forming there.) But viewers probably shouldn’t expect him to do those things any time soon, at least unless Rick spins him over to the dark side again.

But it’s not all seriousness. James is actually having some fun while swinging that thing around. Here’s what he had to say to BT.com about last week’s episode.

I love that so much. As you guys might have guessed , my job here at CinemaBlend never allows me to bitchslap anyone.

The first time we met Morgan, he was pretty much identifiable as the guy whose wife died and left him a single father in the apocalypse’s early days. Then when Rick reconnected with him in Season 3, he was the guy who had more than a couple of screws loose. In Season 5, he was the calm guy tracking Rick. And now he’s the guy who uses a stick to put people on their ass. So it not only helps the character’s sense of self, but it also allows audiences to recognize which version of Morgan we’re seeing. Here’s hoping that flashback episode is coming soon so we can see who brought him to this calmer place, and how.

The Walking Dead airs on Sunday nights on AMC.

When The Walking Dead came back from its midseason hiatus last year, almost everything changed for the characters. Not only were Rick & Co. introduced to a brand new location, the semi-safe haven Alexandria, but the group was also being followed by Morgan, a character we hadn’t seen since Season 3. Morgan has now become an integral part of the storyline, and though fans might assume that the character’s comic book presence is the main reason Scott Gimple and Robert Kirkman brought him back into the fold, it was actually the fans themselves. Way to go, us!

This sweet piece of insight comes from Morgan himself, as the ego-free Lennie James shared his thoughts with BT.com.

So if you’ve ever had someone in your life that told you that sharing your opinion will never do any good – and hopefully you don’t have any of those people around – then Morgan and his face-smashing bo will serve as proof that being outspoken can bring awesome changes about. We the people have ultimately made The Walking Dead a better show.

Like many others, I was already a huge fan of Morgan from the comics, and Lennie James has perfectly embodied that character, though he’s seen his share of changes on the small screen. James’ acting is even more impressive considering he’s basically played the guy three completely different ways over the years. First as a mostly calm widower trying to keep his son safe, then as a suicidal lunatic who lost his only child, and now as a meditative former loner with a dry sense of humor whose methods of survival include “not killing anyone because life is precious.”

It’d be one thing if the Walking Dead creative team decided to appease people by just bringing him back for one or two episodes, but he’s a major part of Season 6, and his relationship with Rick will inform a lot of the drama. Hell, they’re even giving him his own flashback episode to show us how he got to this current headspace. That’s some major fan service.

The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC.

It’s almost here, everybody! Season 6 of The Walking Dead is mere days away, instead of weeks or months, and things are going to kick off with what is being touted as one of the most insane episodes of the series thus far. But let’s look beyond that first episode, as the rest of the season will not only show us what the future is like for Rick and the rest of the Alexandrians (and others), but it will also take us back in time. Specifically back into Morgan’s past, as one entire episode will serve as a flashback to the fan favorite character’s lost days.

Fans got reacquainted with Morgan during Season 5, as he tracked Rick down and finally caught up with him in the season finale under some pretty awful circumstances. And this was a far more zen version of the character than the person we’d last seen in Season 3’s “Clear,” in which he was fifteen shades of grief-filled crazy after losing his son. But what happened during that chunk of time when we weren’t following his actions? That’s exactly what we’re going to see in this standalone episode. Here’s how showrunner Scott Gimple put it to TVLine.

Obviously this creative team has a good reason why Morgan went from raving to meditative, and they didn’t just decide to bring him back because Lennie James is such an ace performer. (Although they well could have.) The modern version of Morgan thinks that all life is precious, and he didn’t even kill the pair of Wolves that attempted to murder him in the woods; it was a dumb move on his part, but nobody said that calm and calculated equals smart.

James previously shared that Morgan changed so dramatically because he met someone that had a spellbinding effect on him and completely changed his outlook on life and survival. That person obviously didn’t stick around with Morgan, for either innocent reasons or sinister ones, but he or she was apparently influential enough to mold him into what looks to be one of Season 6’s most intriguing characters. I’m still convinced it’s Paul “Jesus” Monroe, but that might just be wishful thinking.

When Gimple revealed at Comic-Con that the show would explore the past a lot, we had some hopes that Alexander Davidson, the former leader of Alexandria, would see his story told. And while that may still happen, we’re perfectly happen to get an entire segment centered on Morgan.

Find out what happens to Morgan and all the rest of the survivors when The Walking Dead Season 6 premieres on AMC on Sunday, October 11.

There are loads of new characters coming to The Walking Dead, along with a herd of more decrepit walkers, but that doesn’t mean the main group of survivors is being left behind. The Season 6 promos have been pretty heavy in pitting Rick and Morgan’s ideals against one another, but the characters’ connected pasts will definitely complicate things on that front.

Lennie James recently spoke a bit about what the Rick/Morgan dynamic is going to be in Season 6, and how it’s partially informed by each character being in the same headspace that the other was in previously. (Namely, Morgan is a calm and collected individual, while Rick is slowly losing his grip on his humanity.) But with these characters, it isn’t merely an issue of “right vs. wrong” or “us vs. them.” Here’s how James explained it.

While we’ve seen characters on this show that were pretty much complete outsiders to everyone else, Morgan is the only one that’s been there from the very beginning, and the only person who hasn’t really interacted with anyone except for Rick. (Except for him meeting Daryl and Aaron in the Season 5 finale.) One would assume that having only one personal connection in the world would lead Morgan to doing whatever it takes to strengthen that bond, but if he’s indeed fully against most of what Rick stands for these days, then maybe he doesn’t mind risking everything in order to bring people to his side.

Rick’s point of view these days is basically “You’re either with me or against me,” without a lot of room in the middle of the road. He obviously has those who will be behind him for the long haul, including Carol and Carl, but I could see almost anybody else taking him to task. Not one-on-one or anything, but as a group.

Beyond his connection with Rick, it’s possible that Morgan isn’t even cut out for living in a large group, as he’s certainly not used to it. So he might not even last in Alexandria, and for reasons other than him squabbling with what is now his oldest friend. Here’s how he explained it to EW.

I can’t imagine that anyone would be such a dick to Morgan that he’d want to leave without some larger dynamic playing into it. But then it seemed like Abraham and Eugene would be tight forever, until that whole “Eugene lied about everything” got in the way.

Find out just how well Rick and Morgan will get along when The Walking Dead Season 6 premieres on AMC on Sunday, October 11.

Let’s kick things off with some full disclosure for those not already aware: I hate The Walking Dead’s Carl Grimes in a way that’s probably unhealthy, as I could be putting that energy into something more helpful, like raising my children to not be like Carl. In any case, all the other Carl-haters and I can finally look forward to the character having at least one moment of supreme glory in the upcoming Season 6, though it’ll be directly tied to something he says, and not necessarily something he does. Still, I can take that.

While speaking at the Fan Expo Canada 2015 event this past weekend, The Walking Dead stars Chandler Riggs, Norman Reedus and Lennie James were on-hand for an amusing Q&A with the fans, and when someone asked about their favorite lines from their characters, all three of them ended up championing a line that Carl will deliver. After Riggs said that his was “coming up,” James poured on the anticipatory glee.

I’ll admit that by itself, nothing Carl says is going to completely turn me over to his side, but I’m more than willing to hear him utter what sounds like it might be one of the best TV quotes of the year. Because after all, it’s also about what’s happening during the scene when that line is spoken, and comic fans know that Carl has quite a bit of excitement coming in his life, if Scott Gimple and Robert Kirkman decide to take things in the same direction, that is. In any case, I doubt he’s just sitting in a room with Enid when he says his line.

I have to wonder if Carl will say my favorite line of his from the comics, in which he’s defending another character from an attack at a moment later than where the show is right now. You can read it below, but I can’t imagine that AMC would allow him to say it as is.

That would be amazing if they did, though. Carl also has some pretty killer lines whenever Negan enters the story, as they have an interesting dynamic. But it’s unclear whether or not Negan will definitely be joining Season 6 or not, so maybe we’ll hear James and Riggs saying the same thing about Carl’s dialogue next summer before Season 7.

Reedus also says that his favorite line of Daryl’s is coming in Season 6, and that there are a bunch of other good ones to come. I’m betting Abraham has a large number of those. Find out what characters will be saying what when The Walking Dead premieres Season 6 on Sunday, October 11.

Spoiler warning for those who haven’t seen The Walking Dead’s Season 5 finale ”Conquer”.

For fans of The Walking Dead, few aspects of the show inspire as much curiosity as the existence of Morgan Jones, the sometimes-recurring character played by Lennie James. Prior to Season 5, the last time we’d seen Rick’s first post-apocalypse compadre was back in Season 3’s “Clear,” in which he was clearly mentally unstable. But as this season’s post-credit sequences and finale have shown us, he’s not only of sound mind again, but also some kind of a Zen master with keen staff-wielding skills. So what the hell happened to him between then and now?

James shared an interesting bit of insight with EW about what happened to him after he was rambling about people “wearing dead people’s faces” in “Clear.” When asked how showrunner Scott Gimple was informing his performance, here’s what James said.

There’s nothing I like hearing about more than a mystery character, especially one that is able to center Morgan, who looked like he was too far gone after the death and reanimation of his son Duane. In answering another question, James says that this other person “kind of led him and redirected him to another path.” So now that we know Morgan was guided back to sanity by another, the question then shifts to, “Who is this sage savior?” (Not to be confused with the comic’s Saviors, as I seriously doubt Negan had anything to do with this.)

My best guess, assuming Gimple and Robert Kirkman didn’t just completely fabricate a new character, would be the comic’s Paul Morgan, commonly referred to as Jesus. Religious symbolism aside, Jesus is known for his stellar hand-to-hand combat, which would explain how Morgan’s weapons skills are so sharp, as evidenced by his first meeting with the Wolves. Jesus’ other main traits include his tactical intelligence and wisdom, which makes him the perfect fit for bringing Morgan down to a level of patience and understanding, something that Rick’s violence-fueled gang couldn’t possibly have taught him.

In the comics, Jesus initially lives with the Hilltop County community, a group that we’ll certainly be seeing on TV in the next season or two. It would be interesting for the show to introduce him in this manner, potentially linking Morgan to the future of the show as well as the past. (Assuming we continue to see Morgan, that is, as James could only confirm that he’d be in at least one Season 6 episode.) But James saying that Morgan’s path to sanity is part of the future mythology of the show has me feeling good about Jesus’ chances.

In true Walking Dead fashion, we presumably won’t actually get into the firm details of Morgan’s story until Season 6, if it even gets brought up then. But at least we have a firm notion to speculate on, which is something that hasn’t been afforded to Morgan much in the past. It’s going to be a long wait until The Walking Dead returns this fall.

Opposite its behemoth series Breaking Bad, AMC premiered a brand new drama tonight starring Mark Strong and Lennie James. Low Winter Sun follows the murder of a cop and the subsequent cover up, set against the backdrop of a corrupt police unit where nobody trusts each other and no one is talking. The standard form of a pilot doesn’t always say a lot about where a series might be going, but if this is what we have to expect from Low Winter Sun, the series will offer an escape unlike anything else television has to offer.

We’re introduced to Strong’s Detective Frank Agnew in a tense moment. He’s clearly psyching himself up for something, and when he turns to break the third wall and face the camera, we know it isn’t something good. He meets up with another officer in his department. Joe Geddes (James) has a more colorful past, and between the two there’s enough anger and will to take down a corrupt cop and make it look like a suicide. It sounds like I’m spoiling a lot, but this is only the first five minutes of the series.

Unlike most police dramas, we don’t have a whodunit. Instead, we have a web of lies being spun in the unlikeliest places, a police department, a little a la Dexter. In fact, there are nods to many other series in Low Winter Sun. The setting and intimate moments inside the walls of a police department may remind viewers of The Wire and the anti-hero status of our two leads—but especially Agnew—harkens back a little to another AMC series, one that also airs on Sunday nights.

It may nod at several small screen endeavors, but Low Winter Sun is its very own program, first cultivated as a miniseries in Britain in which Strong also played the lead. The powers that be liked his performance so much that they invited him back for another round, and it’s easy to see why; the actor’s portrayal is a man who is thorough and steady-handed but also tense and clearly holding in anger. There are a lot of layers in the performance, helped by the fact that Agnew’s just involved himself in a moral grey area by killing his corrupt fellow officer (who supposedly killed a girl). Still, I get the feeling the rigidness is constant, carefully maintained by the detective on a daily basis.

Or maybe he’s just having a bad day. Suits actor David Costible pops up in the episode as an Internal Affairs officer, and he has his eye on Agnew, and James, too, along with other watchful eyes in the department. He’s hoping to sniff out the corrupt officers, and while Agnew’s seems intent on believing that killing was a one-time deal, we soon learn things may not be clear-cut as they seem. His partner-in-crime, Joe, might be hiding some dirty cop secrets of his own. Joe spends most of the episode playing the fast talker, but when it comes to his secret deed with Agnew, his real capacity to understand and empathize with blurred moral lines shines through.

The Internal Affairs stuff should keep our two heroes busy for the next few weeks, as should the cocaine that’s being sold across the city of Detroit, stealing across the city’s bars and empty houses. In the absence of a murder mystery to solve, the cat and mouse mystery seems to have gone inside the department, and we can’t wait to see how Chris Mundy’s tangled new web of a show will unravel.

AMC’s Low Winter Sun airs on Sunday nights at 10 p.m. ET.