AMC announces which Walking Dead character will cross over with Fear

Back in October, AMC and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman revealed that the worlds of The Walking Dead and its companion series Fear the Walking Dead would be colliding, with a character crossing over from one show to the other. Since Fear is set, at this point, years before the current events on the original show, most fans assumed that it would be a Walking Dead character who would be appearing on Fear the Walking Dead.

In the final episodes of Fear's third season, it seemed like the show would be heading to Texas in its fourth season, so the most logical possibility seemed to be Abraham (Michael Cudlitz), a character from Texas who was removed from The Walking Dead by the villain Negan at the head of the seventh season.

Last night, AMC aired the sixth episode of The Walking Dead's eighth season, and on the episode of The Talking Dead that followed they announced which character will be crossing over between Dead worlds – and while it is indeed a The Walking Dead character who will be moving over to Fear the Walking Dead, it's not a character who I ever expected to see on Fear.

Joining the cast of the fourth season of Fear the Walking Dead is Lennie James as Morgan Jones, a character first introduced in the pilot episode of The Walking Dead. He was then largely absent from the show, aside from an episode in season 3 and a few episodes of season 5, before catching up with the main characters for season 6. Almost halfway through season 8, Morgan is still around, and showrunner Scott M. Gimple (who will be executive producing Fear season 4) said, 

Even though Morgan is going to be featured on Fear, he has a lot of story left on The Walking Dead. Morgan's arc on The Walking Dead season 8 positioned him for the story on Fear. It was also important to see Fear's world and characters through new yet familiar eyes."

The shows being set in two different time periods could allow for Morgan to be on both shows going forward, but during his appearance on The Talking Dead James seemed to imply that Morgan's days on The Walking Dead are coming to an end: 

From the very first moment that the whole suggestion of Morgan, my character, going over to Fear the Walking Dead, the hardest part of it from beginning until now has been leaving The Walking Dead. Leaving that cast, leaving that crew,. And I've said my goodbyes to the cast and stuff and I've said my goodbyes to the crew. … They're an amazing bunch of people, and I'm going to miss them very very very very much.

… I hope (the fans) come with me over to Fear the Walking Dead, 'cause I'm really looking forward to exploring Morgan in a whole different world, in a different realm, with different characters in a different place."

Having wrapped his work on The Walking Dead season 8 in Atlanta, Georgia a week ago, James began filming Morgan's first scenes on Fear the Walking Dead season 4 this morning in Austin, Texas.

It will be interesting to see Morgan on Fear, but this crossover also seems to present something of a continuity issue, as it has been pretty well documented what Morgan has been up to during the zombie apocalypse. He spent most of it in the same part of Georgia, losing his family and his mind (and learning Aikido), then ended up travelling from Georgia up to Virginia… so it's not clear how he managed to stray over into Fear territory. Or if it's the other way around, bringing Fear characters into The Walking Dead territory doesn't seem like a good idea.

The details on how this crossover will work probably won't be revealed until Fear the Walking Dead season 4 reaches AMC airwaves sometime next year.