Walking Dead: C. Thomas Howell’s Season 9 Cameo Explained (& Will He Return?)

Here’s C. Thomas Howell’s brief cameo in The Walking Dead season 9 explained. The Walking Dead graphic novel debuted in 2003 and was created by Robert Kirkman, and it soon became a cult success. The comic aimed to depict a zombie movie that never ends, and how the world would evolve when overtaken by the undead. The Walking Dead also had a knack for creating iconic characters and featuring harrowing scenes of violence and gore. In keeping with its goal to surprise readers, it came to an unexpected end in 2019 with issue #193.

The Walking Dead’s success was cemented thanks to the AMC TV series, which cast Andrew Lincoln as lead character Rick Grimes. It soon became one of the most popular shows on TV, which led to further TV spinoffs like Fear The Walking Dead, several video games and other merch. Lincoln ended up leaving the series during season 9, though he’s set to reprise Rick Grimes in a future Walking Dead movie. The series itself is set to finish with season 11 in 2022, though the franchise will continue on it other forms.

C. Thomas Howell is best remembered for his work in the likes of Red Dawn and The Hitcher, though he’s still prolific to this day, having most recently appeared in The Terror season 2. He made a surprise appearance in The Walking Dead season 9 episode “Stradivarius” where he played “Hilltop Resident.” His surprise appearance is actually down to Michael Cudlitz, who directed the episode.

Fans will of course remembered Cudlitz best for playing Abraham Ford for several seasons of The Walking Dead, and he later returned to helm a few episodes. Cudlitz explained to Crooked Ilama that for C. Thomas Howell’s scene he needed an actor who could ride a horse and act, and after finding that to be a surprisingly tough request, he turned to Howell, who is a friend. Sadly it’s a tiny part for the actor, who is seen encountering Michonne and her group on his way riding from Hilltop to Alexandria to inform them Rosita has been injured and was taken to the colony.

C. Thomas Howell agreed to the role after hearing he didn’t die and could potentially return, though as of The Walking Deadseason 10 this has yet to happen. Given the chaos at Hilltop towards the end of the season its possible Howell’s guard was killed offscreen, and it’s now looking unlikely he’ll reappear on the series.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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