Spoilers below for the extended season finale for Fear the Walking Dead Season 3, so be warned.
After years of claiming that the two shows' differing timelines meant a crossover episode might never come for The Walking Dead and its companion series Fear the Walking Dead, fans were recently pretty shocked when it was confirmed that such a crossover is indeed on the way. And while it wasn't initially made clear which character or characters would be involved, tonight's Season 3 finale for Fear the Walking Dead gave viewers a huge clue that Michael Cudlitz's Abraham Ford will be the first franchise character to appear in both shows.
What was the big clue, you ask? Well, assuming all goes according to the plans that were first mentioned by the new-ish villain Proctor John (played by Deadwood and Sons of Anarchy vet Ray McKinnon), the motorcycle club leader and his squad have a post-dam-takeover plan to head into Texas to head into "what's left of Houston." It's not entirely clear if that will still be the case for those who survived (basically just Madison, at this point), considering everything that went down at the end of the finale, but there's no way the episode would city-drop Houston -- especially since Proctor John got specific after only first mentioning Texas.
Houston is important, of course, because that was established as the pre-apocalypse hometown for Abraham, and he assumedly lived there for the bulk of his life that wasn't devoted to whatever military tours he went on. And fans know that Abraham went through some terrible times before he tagged along with Eugene (under the belief that Eugene was in contact with the government). While Abraham and his family survived for a short amount of time after the shit hit the fan, his wife was raped by one of the other survivors they were holed up with, and Abraham rage-killed that rapist and others, which scared off his wife and children. He later found their walker-chomped bodies, which is what led to his suicide attempt.
But because this universe is what it is, it's hard to pinpoint exactly where Fear the Walking Dead's current timeline matches up with The Walking Dead's as far as what would be happening in Abraham's life. Could we see him with his family in mildly happier times? Will Fear characters run into both Abraham and Eugene elsewhere in Texas during the duo's trek? There's also no telling how big of a crossover moment we'll get, but we're hoping for something big.
It would be one thing if this episode moment was the only thing that we had going for us as far as clues go, but Michael Cudlitz himself ignited the Abraham rumors with a mildly cryptic social media post that went up in the aftermath of the crossover announcement at New York Comic-Con. So there's always a chance that it won't be Abraham in the crossover, but our confidence and optimism are pretty high. Especially since Cudlitz already made a post-death return in the Walking Dead's Season 7 finale. When I'd spoken with the actor relatively recently, I'd inquired about a future return for Season 8, and looking at his answer now, it's possible he knew about the crossover installment at the time.
Now that Fear the Walking Dead Season 3 is complete on AMC, fans get to anticipate Season 4, which will be the first set of episodes with the new showrunners replacing Dave Erickson. But in the meantime, we've got Season 8 of The Walking Dead to get pumped about. Check out what producer Gale Anne Hurd told us about it, and then head to our fall TV premiere schedule to see everything coming to the small screen in the near future.
