It doesn’t matter whether it’s The Walking Dead or Fear the Walking Dead, both shows love to play around with character death—either by making it look like a character is going to die or by killing an entirely different character altogether. Sometimes it feels cheap to be tricked and toyed with as a fan. It’s not always an effective strategy to get people pumped out for the next season.
Where Morgan (Lennie James) was concerned in Fear the Walking Dead season 5 finale, the possibility of death was there. His fate was left up in the air because he suffered a gunshot at the hands of Virginia (Colby Minifie) and was left for dead while walkers descended upon him. Morgan did once proclaim: “I don’t die” a long time ago. And he certainly didn’t die this time around! Yes, Morgan survived the ordeal but not so easily. Several weeks after he was shot, his wound was badly infected and gangrenous. But someone managed to extract the bullet while he slept. That someone was eventually revealed to be Virginia’s sister (who turned out to be her daughter), Dakota (Zoe Colletti).
Despite how Morgan did survive, you could say he died. That’s if you want to get metaphorical and think about the ways parts of us die after traumatic events. In fact, after Morgan deals with a bounty hunter that Virginia sent to finally get rid of him, he tells over the radio: “Morgan Jones is dead. You’re dealing with somebody else now.” Pretty iconic if you ask me and in a lot of ways it was true.
(featured image: AMC)
