'The Walking Dead' may have just teased the impending return of a character who supposedly died years ago
- Warning: There are massive spoilers ahead for season 10, episode 19 of "The Walking Dead."
- A bottle of whiskey on the episode curiously reads "Duane Jones."
- It could be a hint that Morgan's son, who supposedly died years earlier, is actually alive.
Is Duane Jones returning to "The Walking Dead" universe? If you're to believe a tiny detail you may have missed on Sunday's episode of "TWD," signs point to yes.
Episode 19 of Season 10, "One More," centers around Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) as they're on a fruitless search for food and supplies. As the two take shelter for an evening, Gabe finds a bottle of whiskey.
If you take a close look at the bottle's label it says "Duane Jones."
That should make you pause.
Duane Jones is the name of Morgan's son.
There's just one problem. Morgan (Lennie James) has repeatedly said his son - supposedly - died years ago.
Didn't Duane die years ago? That's what we were told.
Duane only appeared on one episode of "The Walking Dead," the show's 2010 pilot.
When Rick (Andrew Lincoln) awoke in a hospital bed to find the world run over by the dead, he went back to an empty home. Morgan and his son, Duane, found Rick, took him in, and gave him a crash course on the new world.
When Rick bumped into Morgan again on season three, episode 12, "Clear," (one of the show's best episodes) Morgan was a changed man. A loner, stockpiling guns and weapons, he became consumed by grief and distrustful of outsiders.
Only after a scuffle does Morgan remember Rick.
Morgan tells him Duane was attacked by his dead wife, Jenny. It sounds like he never had a chance.
"I was checking out a cellar and I didn't want Duane to come down there with me," Morgan told Rick. "When I came up, [Jenny] was standing there right in front of him and he had his gun up and he couldn't do it."
"So I called to him and he turned. And then she was just on him," he added. "And I see red. I see red. Everything is red. Everything I see is red."
Morgan said he killed his wife, who had become one of the undead a long time ago. He didn't say anything else of Duane, but it's assumed he perished.
Since then, Morgan has told other survivors his son is dead.
Is it possible that Morgan was so far gone he didn't even know what was really happening? Eh, that seems tough to believe.
That would be a serious retcon for the series, but this is a universe that may bring back fan-favorite Madison after she was "killed" off "Fear the Walking Dead" years ago.
If Duane didn't die, 'TWD' could bring him back by remixing a huge Michonne moment from the comics
In the comics, Michonne has a daughter named Elodie, who disappeared and was assumed dead for years.
Late in the series, when Michonne arrives at the Commonwealth (the home to the group that Ezekiel and Princess just stumbled upon), she's reunited with her grown-up daughter in an emotional moment.
The AMC series gave Michonne a young son who died early in the apocalypse. With the character out of the picture, it would be incredible to see the series continue that story line through another character.
After seeing that whiskey bottle, it has us wondering if something else actually happened to Duane and he wound up at the Commonwealth making his own whiskey. (It doesn't really answer the question of how it wound up in this location.)
A Duane reveal would also open up the possibility for "FearTWD" and "TWD" to crossover at some point during the flagship show's final season. Morgan left "TWD" back on season eight to join the fourth season of "TWD" spin-off, "Fear the Walking Dead."
(Honestly, it's a bit strange AMC hasn't pulled a page from the CW Arrowverse playbook and committed to making crossovers between its two zombie series a regular thing.)
Moreso, a Duane reveal would bring the show a bit full circle in its final 11th season by potentially having two original characters from the pilot episode of the show survive and make it all the way to the very end of the series.
That's something that cannot happen even if Rick does return for the series finale. His son, Carl (Chandler Riggs), was killed off the show.
The problem with this theory: Gabe seems aware of this whiskey brand.
Before we jump on the #BringDuaneBack bandwagon, there's one small wrinkle.
Gabe told Aaron it's a really expensive bottle of whiskey, suggesting he was aware of the Duane Jones brand before the apocalypse.
"It's not just whiskey. It's perfection. It's rare. This bottle? Easily cost over $2,000," Gabe told Aaron.
Why this may be more than a fun nod: 'TWD' has hinted at reveals and twists before.
Maybe it's just a fun Easter egg and nod to Morgan's son, but we wouldn't be surprised if the show is laying the foundation for a larger reveal, especially since we've had a few time jumps now so Duane would definitely be an adult by now.
"TWD" also isn't a stranger to planting seeds and hints at later reveals in its more recent seasons.
Before the show revealed Dante was secretly a Whisperer on season 10, the show dropped subtle clues to tip viewers off that he couldn't be trusted.
Hints at Beta's (Ryan Hurst) identity before the zombie apocalypse were laid across both "TWD" and "Fear TWD."
Could "TWD" be planting seeds at an eventual Duane return?
We wouldn't rule it out just yet. In the words of "Fear TWD" co-showrunner Ian Goldberg, "We never saw a body."
If this is supposed to be a mere Easter egg, that'd be a bit of a bummer. It would be a much more satisfying way to bring the show full circle to a character we met on "TWD" pilot in 2010.
Do you think the bottle featuring Duane's name is just a fun nod or something more? Let me know on Twitter @KirstenAcuna.