[Spoilers ahead for Fear the Walking Dead, Season 7, Episode 12] In the latest episode of Fear the Walking Dead, two major characters died — Howard (Omid Abtahi) and John Dorie Sr. (Keith Carradine). It was a surprise to see both of the characters die since they played a big part in the story, but the interesting thing is it was Dorie who killed Howard as he threw him off The Tower via orders from Victor Strand (Colman Domingo). In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Abtahi shared his reaction to the death of his character.
“Well, when I signed up for the project, I pretty much knew I had an expiration date,” Abtahi exclusively told PopCulture. “I didn’t know how it would happen, and my heart sunk a little bit. I didn’t want him to get thrown off as well, but it’s not a surprise. With that being said, and I’ve said it before, I’m just glad it was Keith who did it. There’s no better man to throw Howard off than John Dorie Sr. So yeah, it was bittersweet.”
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Howard was introduced at the end of Season 6 running into Strand at The Tower. And as the community grows in Season 7, Howard becomes the second-in-command for Strand, which means he has killed people in the community who they feel impose a threat. An example of that is Howard throwing community member Ali (Ashton Arbab) off the roof of The Tower for not leaving Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) at a radioactive building for betraying him and the community. Now the question is who will be Strand’s right-hand man now that Howard is gone?
“History will tell you these kind of leaders, their house will crumble,” Abtahi said. “That’s me as a fan, as a guess. I literally have no idea what’s going to happen, but he’s making some pretty terrible decisions if you ask me.” Abtahi may not know what’s going to happen next in the series, but the 42-year-old actor enjoyed being part of The Walking Dead Universe, especially working with Domingo.
“It was so much fun, Abtahi revealed. “It’s like some of the scenes we were doing throughout the season were so dark, they were emotionally dark, that we spent so much time off-camera, balancing it out by laughing our asses off. We would crack each other up, and I had such a good time and he’s such a talented actor and I learned so much by watching him. Here I was watching this actor relish in the villainy of his character. And I think Howard is affected by that from Strand, and I think me, Omid as an actor, was also affected by that from Coleman. So, it was a gift, a gift to work with that guy.”
Fear the Walking Dead airs every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and also streams on AMC+. For more on the series and everything you need to know, keep it locked to PopCulture.com for the latest.
