The last time we saw Daniel Salazar was at the end of Fear the Walking Dead's third season when he took a bullet to the face courtesy of Victor Strand. New showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg remained mum on the character's fate when Season 4 didn't answer whether or not he survived.
They announced earlier this year, though, that not only did he make it out of the dam alive, he'll appear in Fear's Season 5. Rubén Blades returns as the enigmatic ex-Sombra Negra that had become one of the series' most unexpected characters in its early seasons, but has been off the grid for what now amounts to over a year.
"The most challenging thing for Salazar for me as an actor is to try to understand what happened to him in the whole fourth season," Blades revealed. "How do I assimilate that and present it in the context of this new season?"
That particular journey could prove daunting for any actor whose character lived over a year since last they met, but it's even moreso for Blades, given how Fear itself has changed since Chambliss and Goldberg took the reins. The entire show has been almost completely overhauled, complete with a brand-new narrative direction and a whopping seven new cast members.
Beyond the superficial changes, the tone of Fear has gone from the bleak nihilism sprinkled with hope, pioneered by The Walking Dead, to one that's far more optimistic and even romantic. This is not Daniel Salazar's typical sandbox, and Blades admitted the adjustment was challenging at times.
"Remember that we are all interpreting, but, in a way, we know our characters better than the writers I think," he pointed out. "Because we've been with the characters and there's certain things that I'm sure Salazar wouldn't say, whereas to move the story one way it's needed for him to say something that maybe he wouldn't. So, you have to understand, my challenge is, why am I reacting this way to this because this is sort of a new situation, and then once I got information then to adapt myself to that."
But none of this is to say that the soul of Daniel Salazar will have shifted much. He's still the smartest person in the room at all times, whether that serves him or not. Blades was happy to report that Daniel hasn't lost any of the military precision and experience that distinguished him in earlier seasons.
"Salazar continues to be an ops guy," Blades confirmed. "He's always like, Strand is always checking everything, Salazar is checking everything from the moment he goes in. He doesn't show up in any place where he doesn't know where the exit is. That's the first thing he sees. He's an ops guy, he's an intelligence officer, that's what his mindset is, but he has gone through a lot of changes."
It's those changes that prove to be one of the most compelling things about Fear's fifth season, beyond the plane crashes and the potential introduction of nuclear fallout and what that could mean for both the survivors and the walkers. Presumably Salazar will stick around for a spell, and, considering everyone else is on an atonement tour with their new mission to help others, lending his skills to the project might help him find peace -- if he hasn't already.
"He has to find a reason to live with his wife dead and his daughter dead and he's found one," said Blades. "Whether that reason is something he'll have found in the interim between Seasons 3 and 5, or whether he'll find it by joining Morgan's ranks, remains to be seen.
But one thing we do know is that Salazar's edge will be a welcome addition to what's now a much kinder and gentler post-apocalyptic drama than we've ever seen from the likes of The Walking Dead franchise.
No matter how much Daniel's softened by the time we meet him, we doubt he's anywhere near the kind of zen mindset adopted by Morgan. Considering Salazar has never been the best team player, the friction between the two about how to move forward could prove very interesting. That said, Morgan has never shot Daniel in the face, so those two will probably get along better than Salazar and Strand -- at least at first.