Fear the Walking Dead Takes Deadwood Connection to a New Level

For those who can’t get enough of the Walking Dead, every new season of Fear the Walking Dead gives fans another dose of the brave new zombie infested world that has now been part of our TV lives for eleven years. But the spin-off show has been increasingly finding parallels with an unexpected movie genre – the western. The latest mid-season premiere episode has now taken that to a whole new level with a top drawer piece of casting. Series spoilers abound.

Fans of the series were devastated in the previous episode when firm fan favorite John Dorie, played by the fantastic Garret Dillahunt, was shot and tossed off a bridge to his doom by Dakota. However, Sunday night’s episode saw John Dorie return – John Dorie Senior that is.

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The latest installment, entitled simply “J.D.”, saw the first appearance of the younger John Dorie’s dad, who had been discussed earlier in the season, when Dorie Jr. talked about a case in which Dorie Sr played by his own rule book to capture a killer: a killer who it turns out is the season 6 villain, Teddy Maddox.

The episode filled in a chunk of back story, and led to the old Dorie joining up with June, searching for clues to stop Teddy at the Dorie cabin, as well as having him reunited with a set of J.D. pistols. One of those episodes that was very character driven, full of emotion and managed to piece together some of the vague dots that have been hanging around from previous episodes. It also saw an interesting addition to the cast in the form of Keith Carradine as John Dorie Sr. For any fan of HBO’s hit series Deadwood, they would recognize him from his portrayal of Wild Bill Hickok.

Anyone who is thinking that this little western connection is enough needs also remember that Garret Dillahunt, long before his stint as John Dorie Jr. was none other than Deadwood’s Jack McCall who was responsible for the death of Hickok. Speaking in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Ian Goldberg spoke about the decision to bring in the character at this point in the show.

“It was important to bring John Dorie Sr. into the story now because we knew this was going to be a heavy June episode and that June has not fully processed her grief over John Dorie. And we wanted to bring her into collision with someone else who needs to process their grief over John Dorie and both of them realizing they can do that with each other.”

On casting Carradine in the role of Dorie Sr. Goldberg added, “Honestly, we got him through our wonderful casting team and some good luck, because he is a world-class actor who is very much in demand. And we spoke to him about the character. He could not be more lovely, gracious. He was excited from the beginning when we talked to him about the character and what our plans were for it. He’s just one of those performers that is iconic in his way.”

Fear The Walking Dead has now been running for six years, and with parent show, The Walking Dead, about to come to a close, it is likely that it will continue on for a few years yet. With more spin-offs, the long awaited Rick Grimes movies and numerous other rumored projects, it seems like the zombie apocalypse is far from over. This news comes to us from EW.

Topics: Fear the Walking Dead, Deadwood

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