Abraham Ford is a major supporting character in the survival-horror TV series The Walking Dead. Appearing between Seasons 4 and 7, he was a former sergeant in the U.S. Army who joined up with Rick Grimes' group of survivors while pursuing his own mission to save the planet from the undead plague, a mission which turned out to be false. While brash and quick to anger, Abraham is also noble and fearless in the face of death.These qualities, along with his physical strength and military training, make him an invaluable asset to Rick's group. He is portrayed by Michael Cudlitz.
Personality[]
Abraham was a reckless and brave individual with a short temper and an equally profound wittiness. He was traumatized by the death of his family, which left him a broken man suffering from PTSD and recklessly suicidal tendencies. At the crux of his conflict: finding what it means to truly live. Despite his violent tendencies, Abraham was wise and thoughtful. At his best, he was providing insightful advice and council to his friends, lightening the mood, and pondering the future of mankind. At his worst, he was plunging himself into peril hoping for the thrill to provide him meaning. He was a living juxtaposition between recklessness and wisdom. In the end, he concluded that truly living was sacrificing for a future.
History[]
Prior to the zombie apocalypse, Abraham had served in the U.S. Army, holding the rank of Sergeant. Not much is known about his military career, though it is believed that he served a tour of duty in the Middle East. After completing his tour of duty, Abraham returned home to be a family man, taking care of his wife and their two children.
When the zombie outbreak occurred, Abraham struggled to survive as their hometown of Houston, Texas descended into chaos. At one point, the Fords took shelter in a ransacked grocery store along with a group of other men, during which time these men attempted to rape Abraham's wife. Abraham became enraged by this and brutally beat these men to death while his wife and children watched. While he did it for their protection, Abraham's actions frightened his family to the point where they abandoned him while he slept. When Abraham awoke to find his family gone, he went in search of them. Not far from the grocery store, he found zombies feeding on their corpses.
Driven to despair, Abraham wandered aimlessly for a time. He was about to commit suicide when he encountered Eugene Porter, a portly man trying to flee from the undead. Abraham saved Eugene who informed him that he was a scientist researching the zombie contagion and had developed a cure, and that he needed to get to Washington D.C. in order to deploy it. This story was actually a lie so that Eugene could get someone to protect him, though Abraham wouldn't discover the truth until much further down the line.
Season 4[]
By the time they make their first appearance in the series, Abraham and Eugene have also been joined by Rosita Espinosa. When the trio appear in the episode "Inmates", they are travelling through the state of Georgia when they encounter Glenn Rhee and Tara Chambler, two survivors of a heated battle that took place at the West Georgia Correctional Facility. Glenn is wounded and falls unconscious, so Abraham allows he and Tara to rest in the back of his truck. After Glenn awakes, Abraham informs him and Tara of the mission to get Eugene to Washington, but Glenn doesn't care about Abraham's mission and is only interested in finding his wife Maggie and their friends from the prison. Glenn and Abraham get into a fight in the middle of the road which attracts a group of walkers. Eugene tries to kill the zombies with an assault rifle, but having never used one before, he fires wide and ends up damaging the truck's fuel tank.
After the walkers are dealt with, Abraham and the others are forced to proceed on foot until they find another vehicle. They eventually come to a tunnel that has partially collapsed. Abraham advises going around it since it is completely dark inside and crawling with zombies, but Glenn believes that the tunnel will put him back on Maggie's trail sooner. Abraham allows Glenn and Tara to go while he and Rosita take Eugene down another road, claiming a car along the way. The trio reach the other side of the tunnel before Glenn and Tara do, and as fortune would have it, they also meet up with Maggie, Sasha Williams and Bob Stookey. They then go into the tunnel where they arrive just in time to save Glenn and Tara from being devoured by walkers.
After Glenn and Maggie enjoy their reunion, the group proceed towards Terminus, a survivors' colony offering sanctuary to all. They eventually reach the colony, but they soon find that it is not the safe haven they were led to believe as the Terminians are cannibals who eat those that refuse to join them. Abraham and co. are locked up in an old boxcar and are joined the next day by Rick Grimes, his son Carl, Daryl Dixon and Michonne.
Season 5[]
Rick's group are not imprisoned in Terminus for long; they escape when Carol Peletier arrives and blows up a large gas canister, breaching Terminus' walls and allowing walkers to flood in. With the Terminians in disarray, Rick and the other prisoners escape and reunite with Carol, Tyreese Williams and Rick's baby daughter Judith.
Later, after saving Gabriel Stokes from a group of zombies, Rick and the others reconvene at a small church where they decide on what they are to do next. Daryl suggests that they head for Atlanta to find Beth Greene who had previously been abducted, but Abraham is determined to continue his mission to get Eugene to Washington. The group split up, intending to reunite after Beth has been rescued.
Abraham, Rosita and Eugene are accompanied by Glenn, Maggie and Tara, taking the church mini-bus to Washington. However, the bus breaks down along the way (later revealed to have been sabotaged by Eugene), though the team recover a fire engine from an abandoned town. They get the vehicle running again and continue their journey, but are forced to stop again when they approach a town that's swarming with walkers. Abraham is adamant that they should keep going, though the others believe that they aren't equipped to fight that many zombies. As the group argues, Eugene becomes frustrated and finally admits that he's not a scientist and doesn't know how to stop the infection, stating that he only told Abraham those things because he couldn't survive on his own. Abraham becomes enraged and nearly beats Eugene to death before falling into despair, falling to his knees and staring off into the distance in a seemingly catatonic state. He remains like this for some time before Rosita manages to snap him out of it.
Abraham and the others head back toward Atlanta to find Rick's group who are trying to save Beth. Sadly, the whole ordeal ends in tragedy as Beth has been killed. Joined by Noah, the group make their way to Noah's hometown, but find that the area has been ransacked with walkers picking over the remains. The group suffers another loss when Tyreese is bitten by a walker and soon dies from infection.
With no supplies and their vehicles broken down, the group are forced to walk down miles of desolate road without a clear goal in sight. Exhausted and starving, the group take shelter in an isolated barn when a storm kicks up. The storm is fierce and walkers have gathered outside, threatening to tear through the barn and kill the occupants. Fortunately, the walkers are killed or incapacitated by several trees that are either uprooted by the winds or struck down by lightning. When the survivors emerge from the barn in the morning, they find they are being watched.
Aaron, a man from a community called Alexandria, offers Rick and his people the opportunity to join them. The Alexandrians have survived the apocalypse in complete safety up to that point, but as conditions outside of the community's walls have deteriorated they have come to need the expertise of those who have survived on the outside. After some deliberation, Rick and the others accept Aaron's offer and are later welcomed into Alexandria, offering their skills to help the town endure and grow.
Season 6[]
As Rick organises a plan to herd a massive horde of walkers away from Alexandria, Abraham contributes to the plan by leading the undead army down a marked trail. Riding shotgun with Sasha Williams, Abraham comes to realise that he has found a new purpose in life by trying to defend Alexandria. He also expresses a fondness for Sasha which eventually leads to romance, much to the heartbreak of Rosita whom Abraham had previously been involved with.
During the herding mission, Abraham, Sasha and Daryl are attacked by mysterious gunmen and are forced to split up temporarily. They later reunite in a burnt-out woodland area after Daryl has had his bike and crossbow stolen, but has obtained a tanker truck full of fuel while Abraham has recovered a rocket launcher from a deserted army blockade. Not long after their reunion, Abraham, Sasha and Daryl head back to Alexandria only to be stopped by a group of bikers who were also affiliated with the gunmen who had attacked them previously. This group, known as the Saviours, demand that the trio give up all of their supplies and equipment, but Daryl responds by blowing the gang up with Abraham's rocket launcher.
Abraham, Sasha and Daryl later return to Alexandria only to find that half the zombie horde they were herding has breached the walls and flooded the town. Rick and the townsfolk are struggling to eliminate the undead presence when the trio make a heroic entrance, saving Glenn and Maggie by gunning down a swarm of walkers surrounding them. They then aid in destroying the remaining zombies by pouring their tanker of gasoline into the pond in the centre of town and igniting it, creating a blaze that lures in many of the zombies and thinning out the horde.
Months following the battle, Abraham and Sasha are pursuing their new relationship. However, their relationship does not last as the people of Alexandria face the threat of Negan and the Saviors.
Death[]
In the Season 6 finale "Last Day on Earth", Rick and his group are captured by the Saviors. Negan meets the group in person for the first time, expressing his annoyance over the fact that Rick's people had previously killed several of his men, but states that he wants the group to start working for him by producing, stealing or scavenging whatever they can and giving up half of it to him. To ensure that his message is received and understood, Negan decides to kill a member of the group and picks one at random. The victim is not revealed on-screen, but Negan's brutal execution is shown through the victim's point of view.
In the Season 7 premiere "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be", it is revealed in a flashback that Abraham was Negan's random victim. Brandishing his barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat named "Lucille", Negan brutally bludgeons Abraham over the head once before gloating and joking about it to his minions. Bleeding and in pain but defiant until the end, Abraham tells Negan "Suck my nuts". Negan then repeatedly bashes Abraham with his bat, smashing his head into bloody pulp.