Lennie James’s Morgan was quite close to being part of another famous cliffhanger on The Walking Dead.
While all of this talk of The Walking Dead and its controversial Season 6 cliffhanger ending has dominated the recent spectrum of the show, it seems that an intriguing tidbit about one of its previous (somewhat controversial) cliffhangers has arisen. Centering on the tumultuous arc of Morgan Jones, the new intel reveals that he was actually destined to be involved in the show’s epic escape from the cannibals of Terminus.
EW got their hands on the August 23 release of The Walking Dead: The Complete Sixth Season on Blu-ray and Digital HD, which includes some insightful commentary on the episode “He’s Not Here,” in which showrunner Scott Gimple drops an untold story about the cliffhanger moment back in the Season 4 closer “A.” The bittersweet, badass moment had Rick Grimes reunited with his flock, though locked in a dark train car like cattle by the Terminus cannibals, confidently declaring – despite their dire predicament – that, “They’re screwing with the wrong people.” However, according to Gimple, one additional person in Morgan was supposed to surprise audiences by revealing his presence in the train car. As Gimple explains:
“At the end of 416, Rick would say, ‘They’re screwing with the wrong people and a gentleman would come out of the shadows of the train car and he would say, ‘Yeah, they are.’ And that would be Lennie, as Morgan. And it looked like it almost could have happened.”
The moment evoked controversy in its own right with AMC opting to forgo their cable-allotted privilege and censor the show's take on Rick's iconic comic speech (though the Season 4 Blu-ray did contain the uncensored "f**king" line in lieu of "screwing.") However, in retrospect, the idea that Morgan would have showed up in that train car makes a lot of sense in the context of a “wow” cliffhanger moment, since, at that point, the character – Rick’s very first zombie-apocalypse ally in the Pilot – had not been seen since the tail end of Season 3 in “Clear,” depicted as an unstable, tragedy-addled recluse due to guilt over the death of his son. It seems that plans were already in place for a (comic-book-deviating) arc for Morgan to surprise the audience in “A” as a Zen-rocking, staff-swinging post-apocalyptic monk.
Take the Den of Geek 2016 Reader Survey for a Chance to Win a $100 Amazon Voucher Right Here!
On the commentary, Lennie James himself states of the nixed cliffhanger cameo that, “We almost made it happen.” However, the moment just wasn’t meant to occur, due to practical constraints. As Gimple further explains:
“Because it looked like a show that Lennie was on was ending. The time was right. But Lennie had a commitment to another show, which allowed us to do something super cool, which allowed Morgan to go on a journey after this episode in Season 5 to see how he catches up to Rick and the group.”
Indeed, the result of the adjusted Morgan plans came to immediate fruition at the end of the Season 5 opener “No Sanctuary” in a scene after the carnage of the Terminus battle, showing the reemergence of the reinvented Morgan, revealing that he’s tracking down Rick and his group. However, it was a sporadic, slow-burn storyline that would finally come to full fruition in the cliffhanger moment of the Season 5 closer “Conquer,” where we learn of Morgan’s dealings on the road with crazies The Wolves and later see him in an extremely awkward group reunion at Alexandria after Rick had just executed “Porchdick” Pete.
Regardless of what could have been, Morgan Jones has plenty of exciting things in store for him in Season 7, since he and Carol will be the makeshift ambassadors of sorts who get introduced to a friendly group of survivors known as The Kingdom, its enigmatic leader Ezekiel and an intimidating pet tiger named Shiva. That, and the answer to the pesky “who got Lucilled?” question will go down when The Walking Dead returns on AMC October 23.
