***The following interview contains spoilers for 7.12***
On AMC’s most recent episode of
Fear the Walking Dead, in order to get Strand (Colman Domingo)’s ear, John Dorie Sr. (Keith Carradine) planted a walkie on Howard (Omid Abtahi), Strand’s right hand man. Towards the end of the episode, although Strand knew the truth, he tasked Dorie with throwing Howard off the roof, and he complied, hoping that earning Strand’s favor would protect Baby Mo. However, in the end, knowing that Strand wouldn’t change, Dorie knocked him out and took Mo to Morgan (Lennie James), getting bit by a walker in the process.
Carradine, who found out before filming the back half of season seven about his character’s demise, recently talked to SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about Dorie’s motivations in the episode. “John had one over overriding concern, which was Mo and what is going to be best for that child,” explained Carradine. “I think that he could have gone either way, in terms of which side he came down on, in terms of who he was going to work with and cooperate with, as long as the end result was going to be the survival of that child under the best possible circumstances. So, I think that as he was dealing with Strand and Strand’s paranoia and obvious, complete unpredictability about how he might respond to any given situation. I think that he simply took every moment as it came and would make decisions in that time as to whether that was going to lead to him being able to do the best thing for the child. Then, finally, as you saw in the episode, when push came to shove, he had to make the choice that he made.”