‘The Walking Dead’ welcomes back an old friend

It’s about time that The Walking Dead and Lennie James made it official.

The big news in Season 6 of cable TV’s most-watched series is that James finally has joined the cast on a full-time basis.

The English actor, introduced to viewers as Morgan Jones in the 2010 series premiere, has been a longtime fan favorite.

He broke viewers’ hearts in that first episode. Morgan’s wife had “turned,” but he couldn’t bring himself to do what was necessary to end her unholy existence as a Walker. It was the earliest indication that a show chronicling a zombie apocalypse could have such poignancy.

Morgan returned for one episode in Season 3, this time as a man on the brink of madness, and made three cameo appearances in Season 5, in which he was trying to catch up with old friend Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln).

In the 90-minute season premiere, airing at 8 p.m. Sunday on AMC, Morgan officially joins Rick’s band of resilient survivors.

“It feels like I’ve been a cast member all along without actually being a cast member,” says James, whose 50th birthday coincides with the return episode. “When I did the pilot, there was no sense that the show would make it to a second season, much less turn into the phenomena it has become.

“There was a strong feeling, in fact, that we were taking a risk, that people might not warm to the notion of a show about zombies. Then I went off, as actors do, to work on other gigs, not thinking any more about it. But as the show’s popularity continued to grow, I started to hear about it from the fans.

“Suddenly, in every situation that I found myself, whether I was auditioning, whether I was walking on set, whether I was doing publicity and being interviewed by the press, whether I was just on the street in my hometown, people kept asking, ‘When are you coming back on the show?’

“That’s when it started to sink in that something extraordinary was happening with The Walking Dead.”

Long gestation

James says his return on a full-time basis had been an ongoing conversation with the producers since Season 3, but it took time to make it happen because he had other acting commitments.

He certainly has come back at a great time in the show’s existence. The Walking Dead is coming off of a season in which it hit an audience high of 17.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched series in cable history. And the Season 6 premiere, “First Time Again,” is a doozy.

In it, Rick organizes an ambitious cattle drive. But instead of cows that the gang must drive away from their new home of Alexandria, it’s a massive herd of dead-eyed, slack-jawed ghouls. (The only thing keeping someone from shouting “Head ’em up, move ’em out” is the fear of starting a zombie stampede.)

James loves this show because “at its heart, it’s about people — and not just people, but real people. They’ve been absolutely fastidious in keeping true to character and telling human stories amongst the craziness of this fantastical premise, an outbreak that leads to a zombie apocalypse.”

A man and his staff

Morgan brings with him formidable skills as a fighter. His weapon of choice is a bo staff.

James has trained so much with his fighting stick that it sometimes feels like an extension of his body.

“There are moments now,” he says, “particularly during episodes where the stick has a large role to play, when I’m in the mindset of swinging the stick, that I’ll find myself wandering through the supermarket thinking, ‘I can take him out at the knees, then jab that guy over there in the gut, then hit him over the head.’

“But that’s kind of the way Morgan has to think all the time. Part of his journey is very much tied into his ability to use the bo staff.

“One of the things I very much like about the show, something taken from the graphic novels, is the specificity of the characters’ relationships to their weapons. It’s Rick and his Colt Python, it’s Michonne and her samurai sword, it’s Daryl and his crossbow, and now it’s Morgan and the bo staff.”

Working in secret

James says he has never worked on a TV show or movie that had such a shroud of secrecy. The Walking Dead team, he says, is determined to prevent spoilers from getting out.

For his appearance in Season 3 and his pop-ins in Season 5, the production team sneaked James into town and booked him in hotels in other towns away from everyone else.

“The CIA could learn a thing or two about covert operations from The Walking Dead,” he says. “I’m still learning how to talk about the show without giving too much away. But the secrecy pays off, I think, when the viewer experiences some great surprise the moment it happens onscreen and no earlier.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 10:40 AM with the headline "‘The Walking Dead’ welcomes back an old friend."