Fear the Walking Dead Newcomer Keith Carradine on Playing Dad Dorie Without Garret Dillahunt’s John Dorie

Keith Carradine opens up about joining Fear the Walking Dead as John Dorie Sr. just episodes after the mid-season exit of John Dorie, played by Carradine’s Deadwood and Raising Hope co-star Garret Dillahunt. Sunday’s Season 6 Episode 13, “J.D.,” introduces Carradine’s dad Dorie: a former detective estranged from his son since the 1970s. While investigating the post-apocalypse return of a murderer mortician he put behind bars four decades earlier, Dorie Sr. crosses paths with John’s widow, June Dorie (Jenna Elfman), and they join forces to stop Teddy Maddox (John Glover) from carrying out a plot that threatens to kill everyone.

“The first thing they told me was that I was going to be playing Garret Dillahunt’s father,” Carradine said during his debut episode of the after-show series Talking Dead. “And when I heard that I got really excited because having worked with Garret a couple of times — first on Deadwood and the second time on Raising Hope when he was playing my daughter [actress Martha Plimpton’s] husband — and he’s just one of the best actors I know.”

But John Jr. was shot and killed just episodes earlier in the mid-season 6 premiere, “The Door,” meaning there would be no Deadwood reunion in this zombie-plagued wild west.

“I was very excited at the prospect of being able to work with Garret again, and then they told me, ‘Well, you’re not actually going to get to work with Garret. You’re playing his father, but he’s gone,’” Carradine said. “And then I learned more from there as time went on and they developed the script, they told me more about the backstory of my relationship with him as my son and who I’ve been, what I’ve been doing for the last 40 years or so since I last saw him.”

When host Chris Hardwick pointed out that — Deadwood spoiler warning! — Dillahunt’s character gunned down his character, Carradine said with a laugh, “Garret Dillahunt is the reason I only got to do four episodes of that show [Deadwood], and I still have a bone to pick with him about that because I would have like to hung around. It was a great show … but yeah, Garret, he killed me!”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.