Is Abraham Ford Returning in Tales of the Walking Dead?

Episodic anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead, the newest Walking Dead spinoff in development at AMC, is a likely landing point for former series star Michael Cudlitz to reprise his role as fan-favorite Abraham Ford. The series created by Scott Gimple will expand the Walking Dead universe with individual episodes or arcs of episodes focused on new or existing characters, including familiar faces who will receive backstories set early in the zombie apocalypse. Cudlitz played Ford across 30 episodes of the flagship series between 2014 and 2016 until the character was murdered by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the show’s seventh season premiere.

When asked about Abraham’s return during an appearance on Strahan and Sara in March 2019, Cudlitz answered, “The way they tell stories is through flashbacks and origin stories. So there’s still characters on the show that were very close with Abraham that he had history with, so it could very easily go back.”

Those characters include Abraham’s former girlfriend, Rosita (Christian Serratos), and Eugene (Josh McDermitt), who was rescued by a suicidal Abraham in Houston, Texas, after the onset of the outbreak. After the death of his wife and two children, military man Abraham made it his mission to escort Eugene to Washington, D.C., believing the big-brained Eugene would cure the zombie plague.

“They’re also doing other movies which are going to move in time — go back in time, go forward in time — and I believe pair up characters that weren’t necessarily paired up in the graphic novels,” Cudlitz said. On Abraham’s return, he added, “A strong, subtle yes. Very, very possible.”

Texas-based spinoff Fear the Walking Dead previously revealed the traveling Abraham and Eugene encountered journalist Althea (Maggie Grace), whose collection of video interviews includes a tape labeled “Abe/Doctor.”

Fear‘s fifth season appeared to hint at a connection between Abraham and Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) when Daniel, showing off a cigar given to him by an unnamed friend, said he would only light it when “things get better.” Abe famously enjoyed cigars and likely crossed paths with Daniel, who went missing during Fear‘s revamped fourth season that installed Morgan Jones (Lennie James) as series lead in the first Walking Dead Universe crossover.

“I will say, we’re working on things where we are looking at past characters,” Gimple, who served as showrunner during Cudlitz’s tenure on the show, said during The Walking Dead‘s virtual Comic-Con presentation in July. “Maybe not a whole series, but we’re looking at things where we can take a peek at — maybe not pre-apocalypse — but early in the apocalypse. We’re looking at folks, so get excited for that.”

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