Did ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Just Kill Off [SPOILER]?

When it comes to The Walking Dead franchise, there’s one, consistent truth: when it comes time for a season finale, someone is going to die. And on the Season 5 finale of Fear the Walking Dead titled “End of the Line,” the show seemingly ended the life of one of the biggest characters ever. Or did they?

Spoilers for The Walking Dead “End of the Line” past this point.

Look, nothing is definite until we see a shambling, undead body, but the final shot of the season left Morgan Jones (Lennie James) in seriously dire straits, with no clear way out. After confronting the show’s new Big Bad, Ginny (Colby Minifie), Morgan was left with a gunshot wound in his shoulder, no weapons, lying alone in the middle of fake cowboy town Humbug Gulch with six flesh eaters headed his way.

The situation was partially his fault, to be fair… He gave up the group to Ginny and her band of Settlers in exchange for help, only to realize too late they didn’t need it. He extracted a promise from Ginny to save the whole group, only to watch them all get separated, including the newly married June (Jenna Elfman) and John (Garrett Dillahunt). And even at the end it wasn’t kindness that saved him, it was a fake gun and a well-timed walkie-talkie call revealing that Grace (Karen David) isn’t dying of radiation poisoning… She’s pregnant and malnourished!

So the last we see of Morgan is that tableau, Ginny leaving him behind to be torn apart as Morgan implores her to let Grace live; in his mind, he’s sacrificed his own life for his lady love’s.

But would Fear the Walking Dead really kill off Morgan? He’s one of the longest standing characters in either show, having first been introduced in the pilot episode of The Walking Dead. Not only that, but after Fear killed off Madison (Kim Dickens), the previous star of the show, in shocking, sudden fashion, killing Morgan might be a step too far.

On the other hand, the show has been going hard at a catharsis for Morgan, with him dealing with the death of his wife and son in a deep way for the first time since he returned to The Walking Dead. He’s even managed to find some peace with this new group — and Grace in particular — so there is a world where it could be his time to go. It would certainly rally the Fear survivors around a flag, particularly Grace and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), who have had deeper bonds with Morgan over the course of the season.

That all said, characters have gotten out of way tougher scrapes on these shows. There was the whole Glenn (Steven Yeun) thing where it looked like he was torn up by zombies, only for it to turn out he was hiding under a dumpster the whole time. And as much as I would like to credit the Fear crew with some subtlety instead of viewers seeing Morgan’s face torn off… That’s just not how these shows work. Bodies or it didn’t happen, and there’s still a few seconds before Morgan turns into undead food, more than enough time for someone to ride in on a horse and save him, or he could throw some pebbles in the walkers’ faces, or the zombies turn out to be humans who are limping. Something. Anything.

Maybe this is grasping at straws, and after a decade (with a short break) of playing Morgan, Lennie James wants to move on to other projects. But my money is on Morgan being around to see Grace’s baby come into the world. We’ll certainly see when Fear the Walking Dead returns next year.

Where to stream Fear the Walking Dead