With The Walking Dead actor Lennie James poised to appear as Morgan James on Fear the Walking Dead, plenty of fans have wondered whether the door might be open to dead characters making a return on the AMC prequel. Say, someone like Jon Bernthal’s Shane Walsh.
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Introduced in 2010 in the first episode of The Walking Dead, Bernthal’s character was the former partner of Rick Grimes who left him for dead in a hospital after the world began to fall apart. After sparking a relationship with Rick’s wife Lori Grimes, tensions came to a head between Rick and Shane when their paths met again. Season 2 brought a deadly showdown between the pair, and led to the death of a zombified Shane.
However, as fans know all too well, death is only the beginning on some shows. The idea of Shane reappearing in an interesting one, and Walsh opened up to The Express about the possibility of returning for Fear the Walking Dead. “I loved Shane,” he said, “and whilst I’m super-grateful I got to do that, he was a character that had a beginning, middle and end, and I got a whole rounded opportunity.”
Continuing with the idea that Shane could pop up on Fear the Walking Dead alongside Morgan, Bernthal said, “I feel like we’ve seen all we need to see of Shane. If we got to see him backwards — that would be interesting. But Shane died in that field.”
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Set before the events of The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead poses some intriguing crossover ideas — but could this one work out? Simply put, no, bringing back Shane wouldn’t even work from a timeline perspective. Photos of James as Morgan on Fear the Walking Dead depict the character wielding his signature stick, which places the those events after Season 3 of The Walking Dead, and after Shane’s demise.
With Bernthal now a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on The Punisher, it would likely be difficult to arrange an appearance on Fear the Walking — that is, if he were even interested.
Returning later this year on AMC, Fear the Walking Dead stars Kim Dickens, Frank Dillane, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Lorenzo James Henrie, Rubén Blades, Colman Domingo, Michelle Ang, Danay Garcia, Daniel Sharman, Sam Underwood, Dayton Callie and Lisandra Tena.