Spoilers ahead for Fear the Walking Dead's Season 4 midseason finale.
The zombie apocalypse is going strong on AMC with Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead. The two shows occupy the same universe of the dead rising and civilization falling, but they haven taken place in different enough times and locations that crossovers didn't seem especially likely. The beginning of Season 4 did bring Morgan over from The Walking Dead, and the midseason finale snuck in a crazy Easter egg that fans of The Walking Dead may have caught to their delight. Yes, the midseason finale included a nod to none other than Abraham and Eugene. Here's how it happened:
While either Abraham nor Eugene appeared in the flesh, the tape marked "Abe/Doctor" is proof that Althea encountered them while on her travels before she turned up on Fear the Walking Dead. The tape appeared when Madison was rummaging through Althea's many tapes, and it's clear that Althea is careful to keep track of her tapes by labelling them. The number of tapes and labels could have simply been used to show just how many Althea has gotten around and heard the stories of survivors, but the tapes were also used to include a sneaky little nod to Abraham and Eugene.
As The Walking Dead fans will undoubtedly remember, Abraham and Eugene started in Texas before the zombie outbreak began. They began their travels northeast toward Washington D.C., where Eugene claimed he could help cure the zombie virus. It seems that Althea encountered them before they got very far and likely before they recruited Rosita, unless Rosita didn't share her story with Althea. That, or Althea ran out of space on the tape label and went with the guy whose name could be shortened and the guy who was going save the world, as Eugene then claimed.
Unfortunately, we may not want to count on ever seeing the "Abe/Doctor" tape for ourselves. Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick said this about the tape:
I think it's just a nice Easter egg that shows how connected the universe is, so I don't know if we're ever actually going to see what was on this tape, but it is a fantastic way to see that the worlds are still connected.
That said, who knows? Michael Cudlitz seemingly teased his involvement in Fear the Walking Dead after Abraham died on The Walking Dead, which indicates that he could be willing to reprise his role. For his part, Josh McDermitt is still in the mix as Eugene on The Walking Dead, so perhaps a quick cameo on Fear the Walking Dead could be as simple as Cudlitz turning up on the Walking Dead set to film a scene with McDermitt.
We'll have to wait and see. The Walking Dead likely won't be back for Season 9 (which will see the departure of at least one major character) until October, but Fear the Walking Dead will return to the airwaves for the second half of Season 4 on Sunday, August 12 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. It should be interesting to see how the surviving characters go on without Madison. For what you can watch while we wait for more zombie apocalypse action, check out our summer TV premiere guide and our 2018 Netflix premiere schedule.
