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The Walking Dead’s Abraham Ford: Mystery Man

By Susie Graham

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Sargeant Abraham Ford entered our apocalyptic world with hope and a mission claiming to be the luckiest man in the world.  He had a mission to save the world with his two companions, Dr. Eugene Porter, a scientist claiming to know the classified cure and/or cause of this walker outbreak, and Rosita Espinosa, a woman they met along their travels from Texas.

This hope, mission, luck and even a smile while fighting walkers would seem to indicate that Abraham is a happy person.  However, it didn’t seem to pan out that way. His mission and military training made Abraham quite single-minded and rather bossy. Abraham’s singular focus was getting Eugene to Washington DC.   Along the way, he met our group,  tried to recruit them, got entangled in troubles with Terminus and eventually became crushed by the weight of discovering that Eugene’s classified information was, in fact, a lie to enlist Abraham’s help because Eugene was afraid he couldn’t protect himself. 

Now that the lie has been exposed and Abraham no longer has this mission to give him purpose and to make people follow him, Abraham has become quite a mystery and quite fascinating to me. Initially, he responded with the to-be-expected anger, punching Eugene and knocking him out. Then sadness and brokenness followed. Coldness and silence as well.

The entire group is together again and they are all trying to adjust to Alexandria and their losses, but it seems that Abraham is aware that he has also gained in some unexpected ways. He lost his family from before, of course.  He has lost Eugene and we’ve yet to see if that’s permanent, but he’s gained many friends whereas before he had just two after being alone and broken and on the verge of suicide. He’s gained respect for his abilities with walkers as well as his leadership possibilities. It seems to me that he’s maybe enjoying the release of all of the pressure of the entire Washington mission on his shoulders and trying to share the stress of being the boss and taking on small leadership roles, as illustrated by the hilarious, “Who’s Deanna?” demand.  He has even become my little Dalai Lama in his ‘self help’ talk with Michonne. He seemed to be downright pleased with himself and a little flirtatious and cocky, but this time in an adorable way and not a bossy, irritating way. 

I’m very interested to see how they develop Abraham Ford for Alexandria. I hope he eventually sees that Eugene did save him.  I know that some comic readers are disappointed in TV Abraham, but I only know what I know from TV.  I hope he plays a much bigger role in Season six and interacts with many of the other characters in new and different ways. I’d love to know what you think about Abraham now and pre-lie. Or if you read the comics and have likes and dislikes. Not too many comic spoilers though! Or give us a spoiler alert warning.

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