Did Morgan Get Bit? Fear TWD’s Lennie James Weighs in on Morgan’s Fate

Fear the Walking Dead star Lennie James weighs in on Morgan’s fate in “USS Pennsylvania,” where Mr. Jones has two close calls with walkers that could prove fatal before the end of Season 6. Spoiler warning for Season 6 Episode 15. When Morgan boards the beached submarine where Teddy (John Glover) plans to launch nearly two dozen missiles carrying enough warheads to wipe out a continent, he’s attacked and pinned by one of the 150 zombified sailors left to rot inside the USS Pennsylvania’s pressure hull. Morgan escapes seemingly unscathed with help from a sharpshooting June Dorie (Jenna Elfman), but it’s an off-screen encounter with the undead that raises the question: was Morgan bit?

When Morgan and Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) make it to a dead-end deep inside the zombie-flooded submarine, the only way out is back through a claustrophobic compartment blocked by dozens of walkers. Running out of time to reach the weapons room where Teddy and the boat’s weapons officer Riley (Nick Stahl) will fire the missiles, Strand kicks Morgan into a pack of walkers and leaves him behind to exit through a now-clear hatch.

Morgan escapes off-screen, reappearing seemingly without a scratch — or a bite.

“Anything is possible,” James told ComicBook in an exclusive interview when asked if “USS Pennsylvania” may be hiding a Morgan bite. “He does say to — I think it’s Victor at one point — that he was inches away from being one of those [walkers]. And he was so close to it that he believes he knows how they think.”

In the Season 6 premiere, “The End Is the Beginning,” a red-eyed and half-dead Morgan was left untreated weeks after he was shot point-blank by Virginia (Colby Minifie). It was the necrotic tissue of his wound that made him invisible to walkers.

“And so, maybe there’s something going on,” James said, “but maybe there’s just not, and it’s just the memories that Morgan has from when he was that close to death.”

On The Walking Dead, Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) is trapped beneath a walker but appears to be unharmed in the Season 8 episode “The King, the Widow, and Rick.” It’s not until two episodes later, in “Honor,” that viewers learn Carl was bitten and is doomed to succumb to the incurable walker bite in his side.

Because Carl can’t sever the affected body part, he later dies by suicide to prevent reanimation.

Fear the Walking Dead airs its Season 6 finale, “The Beginning,” on Sunday, June 13, at 9/8c on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things The Walking Dead Universe.