Morgan has had a pretty transformative character arc on The Walking Dead, to say the least. Over the past seven seasons, he’s gone from a loving family man to a maddened murderer to a reformed pacifist. So, it’s kind of hard to predict just where the hit AMC show will bring him next.
Last we saw, at the end of season 7, Morgan had decided it was time to take up arms again as he reunited with his old pal Rick in bringing down Negan’s Saviors. While chatting to ComicBook.com, actor Lennie James alluded to what we can expect when the show returns. He was careful not to go into too much detail, for fear of spoilers, but he did talk about how he thinks Morgan’s relationship with Rick is a key element of the character.
“I think on one level, even when Morgan’s trajectory in this story isn’t directly to do with his relationship to Rick, it’s to do with his relationship to Rick. You know, any relationship he has to any of the Alexandrans is to do with his relationship to Rick. To a greater or lesser extent, his decision to stay amongst the Kingdom was his reason for bonding to a certain extent and caring about Carol, to a greater or lesser extent, it has to do with the connection to Rick.”
James then suggested that Morgan will widen his net of social contacts in the new season. It seems the actor is pleased with this, as he mentions that the downside of playing an isolationist character is that it means he never got to interact with certain members of the cast that he would have loved to work with.
“In a way that continues. And in another sense, one of the things that’s kind of exciting about coming back in the way that I’ve come back, and the journey that my character has had in this story … And you know like with all of these things it’s a kind of blessing and a curse, but the blessing is I haven’t done a scene or acted with so many members of our cast. You know, people who have kind of, whose work I enjoy, but I just haven’t done a scene with them. And you know, so there’s I think of the people that he’s spoken to outside of the Kingdom, I mean, it’s very few. Chandler [Riggs]…. Don’t think he’s … Yeah, Michonne. I did my first scene with Norman [Reedus], first proper scene with Norman, last season, you know. There’s still loads for my character to explore amongst, you know, in and with the other characters.”
“So I’m kind of looking forward to that. So I don’t … The downside of it is, is that you know, particularly when they kill people off, I don’t get to work with them. So I never got to do a scene with Steven, I never got to really do a scene with [Michael] Cudlitz, I never got to do a scene with Sonequa [Martin-Green]. And I hate the show for that.”
It should be fun for fans to see Morgan interacting with a wider variety of characters in the upcoming season, as he continues to help the Alexandrians in their fight against the Saviors. On the down side, though, evidence points to him biting the bullet – or maybe being bitten by a zombie – in the new run of episodes.
That remains unconfirmed for now, however, so we’ll just have to wait and see how things play out when The Walking Dead returns for its eighth season on October 22nd.
Published: Sep 27, 2017 03:33 pm