Having his head bashed in by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was the end of Abraham’s (Michael Cudlitz) life, but not Cudlitz’s career. The actor made his directorial debut for The Walking Dead’s season nine episode, “Stradivarius.” His impressive work allowed him to work on two upcoming episodes for season 10. Cudlitz took a seat in the director’s chair for episode four, “Silence the Whisperers.”  

“Michael Cudlitz came back and directed this next episode for us. It’s one of the two he did this season. I think he did an amazing job, and we really get into the Hilltop part of the story now. So, we’ve been bouncing back and forth,” showrunner Angela Kang said. “We were at Oceanside, we really dealt with being out in the world. We’ve seen what the Whisperers are up to. We really kind of focused on this group at Alexandria, and now we do a little bit of a dive into what the folks at Hilltop are dealing with.”

Episode three, “Ghosts,” saw a 49-hour long war with the oncoming walkers at Alexandria. Now the story will shift over to the residents of Hilltop and their similar situation. 

“They are also having their own issues with the paranoia that comes with being targeted by the Whisperers and just the things that play out there,” Kang teased. “And I’ve got to say, Michael has one of my favorite shots in the season. I think people will know when they see it, but just some very cool fighting stuff that I thought he did an amazing job with. There’s some cool stuff ahead.”

Cudlitz will continue his role as director for The Walking Dead’s third untitled spinoff series. The show “will feature two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come of age in the apocalypse as we know it. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad.”

That series will premiere around Spring 2020.