Lennie James Teases Morgan’s Story in Fear the Walking Dead Season 7: “Unusual and Unexpected”

Lennie James teases what’s next for Morgan Jones after Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead ended with the veteran survivor and his partner Grace (Karen David) in ground zero of the nuclear zombie apocalypse. Now the adoptive parents of Baby Morgan — the orphaned daughter of Isaac (Michael Abbott Jr.) and Rachel (Brigitte Kali Canales) named in Morgan’s honor — the couple is still reeling from the two deaths that shook up Fear in its sixth season: Morgan’s best friend John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt), the gunslinger gunned down by Dakota (Zoe Colletti), and Grace’s stillborn baby girl Athena, who succumbed to the radiation she absorbed from her pregnant mother.

“The loss of Athena — we will find out the effect that that loss has had on Morgan. I only say that because I think it’s going to manifest itself in unusual and unexpected ways,” James told the AMC Blog. “I think it’s going to affect the choices he makes. I think it’s going to affect the actions that he takes. I think it’s profound for him because, obviously, the loss of a child would be. I think it brings back memories of the previous child that he lost [Duane] and I think it kind of compounds it.”

“But I think also the timing of it on one level for Morgan is really telling because it was at a moment where he allowed himself genuinely to invest in the future, to take a chance on Grace, to take a chance on, as he said, the possibility of being the father to her child, the possibility of being a partner to her, the possibility of seeing beyond tomorrow and hoping,” James added. “And more than anything really I think that what Athena took with her when she died, on one level, was Morgan’s belief in hope and, like I said, that’s going to manifest itself in many different ways [in Season 7] outside of just the general pain that he feels.”

Morgan, Grace, and Baby Morgan survived the initial blasts from the ten nuclear warheads detonated by Teddy (John Glover), but this new nuclear family must now navigate a doubly dangerous world: a post-post-apocalyptic Texas poisoned by radioactive fallout.

“I think more than at any other time in his life Morgan is completely at a loss. I think that he is in territory that he is not in command of. I think that there is literally nowhere for him to run,” James said. “I think that he is unknowing in a way that he hasn’t been, partly because, you know, even when he left Rick [Grimes] and came back to Rick and came back and then left again and left Virginia and ended up in Texas, he has had himself. He has had his own sense of what it is he wants and what it is that he needs.”

“At the end of 616, he has no clue as to where he’s going to live, how long he’s going to live, if it’s possible to keep living, who he is to his group, who he is to Grace, who he is to this child that he’s suddenly inherited,” James continued about the Season 6 finale. “I think the easiest and quickest and most concise way of saying it is that Morgan is completely at a loss, and I think he’s going to be challenged in ways that he’s not been challenged before [in Season 7].”

Fear the Walking Dead returns with new episodes later this year on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things The Walking Dead Universe.