In my Grey’s Anatomy review last week, I was lamenting the fact that Denny Duquette was still hanging around torturing Izzie and preventing her from moving on with her life. At this point, it’s hard to tell whether it’s truly his ghost or just something Izzie conjured up to unconsciously keep herself from moving forward. She seems like she wants to move on, but does she really?
Along those lines, though, I started thinking about all the dead guys that Jeffrey Dean Morgan has played. I’m starting to think there’s a clause in his contracts stipulating that he only play dead guys. Let’s think about it here:
Grey’s Anatomy. Of course, this is the big one at the moment, because how long has Denny been dead? And yet he continues to haunt Izzie, either by his own volition or by something she’s dreaming up. Either way, he’s still dead. Move on, Denny.
Weeds. He plays Nancy Botwin’s dead husband, Judah, and boy, did he leave her in a mess o’ trouble. Of course, Jeffrey still gets to collect a paycheck now and then via flashbacks and dream sequences. Breaks my heart for Nancy and, well, Mary-Louise Parker is God’s gift to premium cable TV.
Supernatural. Morgan plays the dead father, John Winchester, on this show. Others who are more in-the-know can chime in here. Does his character keep recurring?
Watchmen. Depending on how closely this feature film follows the graphic novel, Morgan’s character, Edward Blake/The Comedian, will likely end up dying and becoming the catalyst for the storyline. Again, could use some help on this one.
Then there are those shows and movies in which even if he didn’t actually play a dead guy, the projects themselves had associations to dead people:
Angel. Morgan played the character of Sam Ryan in one episode in 2002. The show was about a vampire who moves to L.A. and helps people with supernatural-related problems.
Tru Calling. He played the character of Jeffrey Pine in one episode in 2004. This show was about a university graduate working in the city morgue who’s able to repeat the same day over again to prevent murders and other disasters.
And just for the names alone, we’ll include movie projects like 1999’s Road Kill, 2004’s Dead & Breakfast, and 2005’s Chasing Ghosts. And by association, we’ll also include 2007’s P.S. I Love You, where Morgan plays the childhood friend of a guy who dies and leaves his wife instructions for the year ahead. In a wild venture off his dead path, Morgan played Rick in a 2007 movie called Live!
What else did I miss? And thanks to The School of Jeffrey Dean Morgan for creating such a great Web site devoted to all things JDM!
Clacked by Jane Boursaw 
on Nov 19, 2008 @ 08:51 EST5EDT
Jeffrey Dean Morgan truly is TVs favorite dead guy. He hasn’t been in an episode of Supernatural since 2007 (although he lent his voice to an episode at the end of season 3 earlier this year). If I remember correctly, his soul was killed when he came out of hell to help the brothers fight Azazel’s army of demons so if he does make any more appearances, it’ll be in the form of a flashback. I hope he does show up a few more times before the series ends, it always makes for an amazing episode. And Jane, what are you waiting for? You and Debbie both need to get to watchin’! If you like Fringe you will LOVE Supernatural.
Interestingly, the Supernatural producers wanted Jeffrey Dean Morgan to be in episode 2.20, “What Is and What Should Never Be,” in which Dean makes a wish that his mother didn’t die and their family didn’t get into hunting. He wasn’t available to do the episode, and his absence actually ended up making the episode stronger. However, those of us who love him were pretty disappointed!
I want more papa winchester!!! :)
The synopsis for the movie Watchmen states that the movie hijinks ensue due to the death of one of their own Watchmen…the Comedian. Guess that seals the deal!
I love him dead or alive, as long as he’s still kicking in the afterworld. ;-)
Interestingly enough, in yet another of Jeff’s movies, ‘Shanghai’, coming out fairly early next year, Jeff also plays a guy killed in the weeks before Pearl Harbor.
Sadly though, Papa Winchester hasn’t shown up again on Supernatural…only Jeff’s voice was used. Hopefully that will be remedied before Supernatural’s run is over.