Fear The Walking Dead Uses Negan and The Walking Dead For Interesting Twist

Fear the Walking Dead took on its first The Walking Dead character when Lennie James joined Season 4 as Morgan Jones. The crossover ultimately did not meet expectations when Morgan’s aimless plan of helping others at any expense to himself or those around him became a frustrating story. Later, Austin Amelio joined the show as Dwight, but the show’s fifth season did not allow him to stand out much more or as much as he did on The Walking Dead. Teases of Rick Grimes movie tie when the CRM logo and helicopters showed up proved to be nothing more than a tease later in Season 5. Now, for the first time, the ties to The Walking Dead and a third crossover character bringing them to life are paying off very well.

For the third week in a row, we find ourselves discussing just how good Fear the Walking Dead is in its sixth season. Last week, the conversation was about how unbelievably good the swing in quality has been. Now, following Episode 6×05, “Honey,” the show has now shown for the fifth week in a row that it is back on track. With Christine Evangelista reprising her TWD role as Sherry just two weeks prior, the explanation of where the character has been and the forming of her new group, along with a less-than-perfect reunion with Dwight was a welcome next step.

“Sherry found this group as a means to find a community of people to just really protect her, but find a way to fulfill this mission that she feels compelled to have, which is to take down Negan,” Evangelista told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview. “And of course, this is a displaced feeling that she’s not putting on to someone like Ginny, because of all of the residual pain and anger that she felt having left the Sanctuary.”

Sherry was bent on revenge against Virginia throughout the episode. She was visibly upset when Dwight almost allowed a dog to kill one of Virginia’s men but she was determined to kill Virginia and her cohorts by her own doing. When the character revealed herself to be internally suffering from her time with Negan on The Walking Dead, everything made sense. Sherry was the victim of abuse and likely had her chances to kill the leader of the Saviors when he was at war with Rick Grimes and is, as a result, carrying an unfair guilt.

“As this episode goes through and we’ll come to find the realization that she has, that this will not give her the closure that she thinks that she needs to move on,” Evangelista says. “But I understand that pain, that real trauma and almost this PTSD where she feels like has to do something in order to break this hardened feeling that she has deep within her. And so she puts herself on this mission, she spearheads this renegade group just to try to really ultimately heal herself.”

For the first time, a connection to The Walking Dead was more than tease. Evangelista’s tremendous performance in the episode and the shared history between Morgan, Dwight, Sherry, and Negan created tense and meaningful dialogue and choices. There is no promise of something greater coming or a tie to a future crossover or movie needed. Fear the Walking Dead simply pulled from the meaningful depths of its characters, using a history established on another show, and delivered yet another powerful and exciting episode on Sunday night.