‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 4: Is Rubén Blades’ Daniel Salazar Returning?

Although Rubén Blades’ Daniel Salazar has been noticeably absent from promotional materials for the upcoming Season 4 of “Fear the Walking Dead,” fans have actually not seen the last of him.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blades will return in the new season, but not as a series regular. Given his new status on the AMC series, fans could expect to see Salazar play a smaller role in Season 4. And even if he winds up as one of the casualties of the Gonzalez Dam explosion at the end of last season, viewers might still see him in flashbacks, as new showrunner Ian Goldberg previously told Entertainment Weekly that Season 4 is “going to be telling stories that experiment with time.”

Executive producer Dave Erickson told Deadline last October that he would continue every character’s storyline in Season 4 if he didn’t vacate his position as showrunner.

“If I were doing Season 4, I could say safely that they’re not dead, but I’m not,” Erickson said of Daniel and the other main characters that were at the Gonzalez Dam when it collapsed last season. “But I think Daniel and Nick (Frank Dillane) are a little bit safer because we wanted Daniel to arrive at that moment, and the suggestion being that Daniel can now drag Nick away if need be.”

While Daniel is set to return for Season 4, it looks like fans won’t see Season 3 villain Proctor John (Ray McKinnon) next season.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last February, Goldberg and his fellow new showrunner Andrew Chambliss were asked if John is still in the mix of adversaries that the show’s protagonists will face in Season 4. While the duo didn’t give a straight answer, Chambliss and Goldberg talked about the show’s capability to reinvent itself, suggesting that they decided not to move forward with John’s story.

“One of the things that we love about this (‘Walking Dead’) universe … that relates to ‘Fear’ is that there is an element of reinvention,” Goldberg said. “Every season, even every eight episodes, where we find our characters in different places, facing new adversaries. I would say that there will be some adversaries that our characters will come into conflict with that are very different than any that we’ve seen before in the ‘Fear’ universe.

“Fear the Walking Dead” Season 4 premieres on Sunday, April 15 at 10 p.m. EDT on AMC.