The Walking Dead executive producer Greg Nicotero has been listening to fan theories about the coming crossover between the venerable AMC zombie series and its sister show Fear the Walking Dead, but though he admits some of the guesses have been intriguing, he says fans so far have missed the mark. That the two series would finally be converging, if only in small way, was confirmed to great excitement by comic book creator Robert Kirkman at NYCC.
Kirkman would not give away which character would be swapping series, leaving the door wide open for fans to make their best guesses on the matter. One popular theory has the character of Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz), who spent several seasons on The Walking Dead before dying at the hands of Negan in the season 7 premiere, showing up on Fear the Walking Dead (which takes place at an earlier point in time) when the show switches its location to Houston. Another theory holds that one or more FWTD characters will show up as Whisperers when, at some point in the near future, The Walking Dead introduces that particular group of long-awaited comic book characters. Yet another theory has the character of Morales, who disappeared during season 5 of The Walking Dead, re-emerging on Fear.
Speaking to ComicBook.com, Walking Dead executive producer and frequent episode director Greg Nicotero addressed all these fan crossover theories and claimed that so far none of them have been right, though he does admit to being intrigued by at least one of the bigger ones.
“Nope, not yet. I love the fan theories. The Abraham one was certainly intriguing and definitely my favorite. I’m not sure when it’s gonna take place. I don’t know when we’re actually introducing that. Listen, the fans come up with some great ideas. Even if they were on point, you know I can’t tell you that!”
Though Nicotero appears to have shot down the Abraham theory (simultaneously admitting that he couldn’t confirm the theory even if he wanted to), all signs still point to that character being the logical candidate to pop up on FTWD. The show we know is moving to Houston, which is where Abraham was before the character hooked up with Eugene and made his way north to finally encounter Rick and the main group. It would be easy to plop Abraham into at least one episode of FTWD and therefore create a fun, welcome little crossover moment for a fan favorite character who many were sad to see die.
The Abraham theory at this point seems so natural that it might almost be too obvious, opening up the possibility that the Houston clue was dropped into FTWD as a deliberate misdirect. If Abraham is not the one crossing over, who then will be making the jump? The theory that has Fear‘s Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and/or Madison (Kim Dickens) showing up on The Walking Dead as a Whisperer is less obvious and therefore more interesting, but also happens to be very far-fetched for a number of reasons, timeline issues being the least of these.
Given the way the two shows’ different timelines work out, the easiest and most logical thing is still for someone from The Walking Dead to show up in a brief appearance on Fear the Walking Dead, and the most logical character to make that leap is still Abraham (regardless of what Greg Nicotero says).
