The Walking Dead: Will We Ever See Morales Again?

The Walking Dead is only a matter of months away from its upcoming sixth season.  Rick Grimes and his group of survivors are now firmly rooted in the town of Alexandria, which is the closest they’ve come to human civilization since the start of the zombie apocalypse.  In just a few short years, the group has traveled quite a distance, overcoming an incredible amount of deadly obstacles.  With the focus set so heavily on surviving the moments that they are in now, it’s easy to forget some of the people, places and things they have seen in the past.

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One such forgotten memory is a small group of characters we haven’t seen since Season 1.  I am talking about Morales and his family, who were a part of Rick and Shane’s camp at the quarry outside of Atlanta. I’ll refresh your memory, if you can’t recall who that is.  After the group was attacked and decided to head for the CDC, Morales informed Rick that he and his family would not be joining them.  Morales opted to gather his wife and two children to head towards Alabama in an attempt to find other family members.  His daughter gave her baby doll to Sophia; it was the same toy that was later found by Daryl Dixon on his quest to find her in Season 2.

Since departing in Season 1, we have not seen one hint as to what happened to the Morales family.  Will we possibly ever see them again, or will their fate ever be revealed?  Well, let’s look at what we know and try to figure it out.

For starters, Morales was not a character from the comic books.  As a completely original creation, there was no storyline to draw from concerning where to go with him.  However, the original showrunner, Frank Darabont, might have had something in mind for Morales.  It’s been documented that Darabont had plans for standalone episodes that focused on other minor characters in the series, such as the zombie Rick executes when he winds up trapped in the tank.  Although, when Darabont was fired early into Season 2, he probably took any of the ideas he had for Morales right along with him.

That might have been all there was to it, but Juan Pareja, the actor who plays Morales, brought the idea to the minds of Walking Dead fans last fall with a curious tweet.  He hashtagged “MoralesLIVES” along with a picture of his character, fueling speculation that he would be returning in the fifth season.  However, now that the season is over without a hint of Morales, the tweet was more likely just meant to promote his appearance at the Walker Stalker fan convention.

With Morales and his family traveling south while Rick and the others eventually headed over to Washington D.C., it’s now becoming extremely unlikely that these groups will ever reunite.  It was difficult enough for Morgan to come across him again, and that was only because the guy is a rare breed of badass that is fully capable of taking care of himself out in the wild.  He was also purposely tracking Rick, and merely lucked out when he came across a map with Rick’s name on it.  Morales is not going to be as fortunate, I reckon.

The only chance, at this point, that I see of seeing Morales again is by way of the spinoff series, Fear the Walking Dead.  Yes, the show does take place on the other side of the country, so the idea of Morales showing up there is improbable.  However, it’s not impossible that Morales and his family could’ve joined a group traveling west, or wound up that way for some other reason.  There is one shred of evidence that could back this theory, and that’s the hint that we’d see a “key character” from Season 1 on Fear the Walking Dead.

More than likely, however, we will never see Morales or his family again.  What happened to them is probably the same thing that happens to everyone, which is a brutal death.  Whether it happened through being overcome by the walkers or coming across someone like The Governor, perhaps it’s better this way with us not having to witness it.  Not everyone is going to survive this world, but we don’t need to see every single death.  And there’s something inherently interesting about there being a mystery left with his character.

New episodes of The Walking Dead return to AMC this October.