The Walking Dead Season 8 Casts Avi Nash

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The Walking Dead Season 8 Casts Silicon Valley's Avi Nash

AMC's The Walking Dead adds a new member to the cast for season 8 played by Avi Nash (Silicon Valley), but his character is a mystery.

The Walking Dead has added a new member to the cast for season 8 in Avi Nash. AMC's immensely popular zombie apocalypse show wrapped up its seventh season earlier this year, which laid the foundation for all out war between Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The show will return for season 8 later this year, with the premiere marking the show's 100th episode.

Nash, who appeared in a 2015 episode of the HBO TV series Silicon Valley, played the role of Saleem in Barry, a movie about Barack Obama's life while at Columbia University.

ComicBook reports that Nash will join the AMC series in an undisclosed role. AMC has yet to confirm the casting. It's not clear who Nash will play on The Walking Dead, but a casting call for "Abbud" that went out earlier this year could provide the answer:

Abbud, an innately likable Muslim-American whose nerves are, let's say, jangled, because he's flown solo for too long in zombieland.

Abbud doesn't match the name of any characters in the comic book version of the story, however, casting calls often use fake names to disguise a character's true identity. ComicBook believes that Nash, who can be briefly glimpsed in the trailer shown at San Diego Comic-Con 2017, is playing a character named Siddiq.

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Siddiq debuted in issue #127 of the comic book series in 2014. The character appeared after the two-year time jump that followed Rick's war with Negan. Some fans are expecting the time jump to happen in the show as well, due to a scene with an aged, crippled Rick at the end of the Comic Con trailer.

Working as a fisherman, Siddiq was a resident of the Oceanside community when he was invited to join Alexandria. While there, Siddiq helped Alexandria in their war with a group called the Whisperers. Siddiq was also revealed to have had a fling with Rosita, possibly when she was romantically involved with Eugene. It's been suggested that Siddiq is the father of Rosita's unborn child.

If the character does indeed appear in upcoming season of The Walking Dead, the character's background would need to be reworked in order to fit the changes made to the source material regarding Oceanside. Oceanside has already been introduced on the show, and has been established as an all-female community that murdered all of their men, only sparing the lives of young boys. In the comics, Siddiq is responsible for the discovery of Oceanside which leads to communication and trade with other communities. In the show, it was Tara who stumbled upon the group.