Fear the Walking Dead leading man Lennie James says Morgan has taken on a Luke Skywalker-like mentorship role with Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), who he recognizes as “the future” of their group of survivors.

“One description you could have of him is that he’s a reluctant leader, and he’s a guy who’s been maneuvered into this position because of his life experience,” James told SYFY WIRE the ATX Television Festival.

“So you have a reluctant leader who has recognized who should be the leader, and he’s helping her to realize that she’s the future of this group. Part of his role at this particular moment is to ‘Skywalker’ her and get her to realize her full potential and what she’s capable of.”

Morgan is currently without his “lightsaber” — a tussle with radioactive walkers left his trusty stick contaminated and currently confiscated by newfound ally Grace (Karen David) — but he’s not without his sage Jedi attitude.

“The philosophy in this season, that we’re going to go out and help people, it isn’t this kind of schmaltzy, huggy, let’s all be nice to each other because we’re really the Teletubbies,” James said. “It’s coming from a place of how seriously they regret the things that they’ve done. They feel like they have to make up for what they’ve done before, and Morgan has a lot to make up for.”

James pointed to Morgan’s murderous rage after losing son Duane (Adrian Kali Turner), and his participating in the double-crossed slaughter of numerous Saviors alongside Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in The Walking Dead Season 8 episode “Still Gotta Mean Something.”

“He killed both the living and the dead — and not in particularly nice ways. He’s got to make up for that. Things he did while he stood at the side of Rick , he’s got to make up for that,” James said.

“So it’s about putting something good into the world, and it’s also about the next stage. We’ve figured out how we survive. We’ve got this far. We know to walk amongst the dead, we know how much time we’ve got before a horde gets to us. The next thing is how do we live? What are we going to be paying forward? I think that’s his impetus.”