More official The Walking Dead casting news: Tammy and Earl

The Walking Dead has released more casting news for season 9 and has confirmed the casting of Hilltop residents Tammy and Earl

The Walking Dead season 9 is going to have a slew of comic characters arriving and two more characters from the comics were confirmed today. The Walking Dead confirmed that Tammy and Earl, two vital Hilltops residents, will be part of season 9. In fact, fans who watched The Walking Dead season 9 trailer closely have already seen Tammy and Earl.

Tammy will be played by actress and comedian Brett Butler, and Earl will be played by John Finn. Many fans will recognize both of Butler and Finn from other projects. Butler has expressed a desire to join the show in the past and in the spring there was some speculation that she might join the cast as Alpha, the leader of The Whisperers. But Samantha Morton is going to be Alpha. Instead Brett Butler will be playing fierce Southern matriarch Tammy who clashes with Maggie repeatedly.

In The Walking Dead comic Tammy is married to a character named Morton and Earl is an entirely separate character who becomes Carl’s mentor and teaches him blacksmithing. Earl is The Hilltop’s primary blacksmith. But it looks like there will be remixing going on and Earl and Morton will be combined in John Finn’s character.

With Carl now deceased and Henry from The Kingdom taking over his storyline with The Whisperers it remains to be seen if another character from The Hilltop will take Carl’s storyline with Earl or if the show will build a new story arc for Earl.

Maggie, Tammy, And Earl

In The Walking Dead comic Tammy and Maggie clash over family issues that involve Tammy’s son and Carl. The absence of Carl means that the primary source of the antagonism between the two will be gone so it should be interesting to see if Angela Kang will use Enid as the source of the friction between Maggie and Tammy or have them clash for other reasons. But Tammy’s willingness to go up against Maggie to protect her family shows that while it might seem like everyone at The Hilltop has just fallen in line behind Maggie that might not actually be the case.

Earl is an important figure at The Hilltop and the community really needs his skills so keeping him  happy, presumably by not attacking his wife Tammy, is going to be something Maggie needs to prioritize. Especially once The Whisperers arrive and The Hilltop ends up in far worse danger than anything they have faced before, even The Saviors.

The Walking Dead season 9 premieres in just over a month on October 7^th on AMC.