How Fear the Walking Dead Set Up Season 7's Twin Twist
Morgan Jones (Lennie James) is seeing double on Fear the Walking Dead. Season 7 saw the shocking sight of a familiar face when the bounty hunter Emile LaRoux (Demetrius Grosse) appeared to be back on the hunt for Morgan — who chopped off his head and left it in a box for Virginia (Colby Minifie) to find in the Season 6 premiere. But it's Emile's identical twin Josiah who is out to avenge his brother in "Six Hours," going after Morgan and Grace (Karen David) on the road during their nuclear apocalypse road trip to find food for Baby Mo.
"We absolutely fell in love with Demetrius Grosse's portrayal of the character of Emile," co-showrunner Ian Goldberg told EW of the bounty hunter who mentions a brother to the doomed Walter (Damon Carney). "And that's why if you go back and watch that episode, there was a line when Emile is at the campfire at the beginning where he talks about the beans being his brother's recipe. We intentionally did that then because in our back pocket, we always knew we wanted to have this moment."
That moment is the ending of "Six Hours," where Josiah and hunting dog Rufus sit around a campfire with opened cans of beans (Emile's recipe). Josiah reaches into a box marked "Morgan Jones" and removes the zombified head of his brother, telling his twin, "Mr. Jones may have got the best of me today... but there's always tomorrow."
"The moment we wrote that, we wanted to have the moment later where a hand reached into the box carrying that head, held it up, and we saw that it was the same face staring back at the head. That's where the initial inspiration was," Goldberg said. "Beyond that, we will learn more about this character, Josiah. We will see more of him. But for now, that's all I'll say, because there's a lot of fun stuff with him to come."
Asked how Josiah came to own the box left behind for Virginia, co-showrunner Andrew Chambliss said, "We will definitely explore that. If you recall, one of Emile's talents was tracking down walkers and finding people, and perhaps his brother shares some of those skills."
Josiah returns when Sarah (Mo Collins) sets out in search of her own brother in "Breathe With Me," now streaming on AMC+ and premiering November 7 on AMC.
Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD and stay tuned to ComicBook for coverage all season long. New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.
