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“I am sorry that I named a stupid baseball bat after you.”
Though the bulk of the material presented in this year’s six additional Season 10 episodes had a super-strong “this could have been an email” vibe, The Walking Dead smartly saved the best for last, delivering the Negan origin tale most fans have been wanting for years – especially since the “All Out War” arc ended.
“Here’s Negan” — which borrows slightly from the character’s comic origins, but then nicely spins things off for the series’ sake — is an actual worthwhile, and heartfelt, rest stop before Season 11 kicks off at the end of August. Star Jeffrey Dean Morgan was fortunate enough to play opposite his wife, actress Hilarie Burton, and their real-life levels of familiarity really helped elevate this flashback story, since many of the scenes here were solely between Negan and Burton’s Lucille.
COVID-era protocols pretty much pared these six additional Walking Dead episodes down to a bare minimum cast, with most scenes over the past month (and some change) featuring only two or three people, maximum. And you could definitely feel the strain of that, especially during last week’s “Carol makes soup” episode. In “Here’s Negan,” however, that type of default intimacy was used as an advantage.
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The idea of Lucille, as not just Negan’s late wife but as someone who, at one point in time, could tolerate Negan enough to marry him, has been a long-standing mystery on the series. With only Negan’s barbed-wire bat serving as a recurring, and brutal, reminder, the very concept of Lucille implied that Negan, perhaps, was a very different person in the past. We’ve seen glimpses of a kinder, gentler Negan over the years, but it usually only emerges when kids are involved – like Carl or Judith.
At the top of this episode, you’ll easily notice that Negan is an extremely changed individual. Because even during his covert time behind enemy lines with the Whisperers, he was cocky and smarmy and held all the old hallmarks of Negan. And even before that, as a prisoner, he still maintained a swagger. But here, just walking with Carol, Morgan plays Negan with much more muted notes. Even his voice sounds different. He’s not the Negan “character” anymore.
As Negan travels back to the tree in the field where Rick slashed his throat, to find his lost bat, we’re whisked back into Negan’s life just a few days before the world falls apart. He’s an unambitious man-child with a tempter that recently cost him his job as a high school gym coach. We also enter Lucille’s life right at the tipping point, when she’s just about had her fill of Negan’s lovably lost ways. She’s grown out of her “I can fix him” phase and now wants more from her partner. Which is, of course, the perfect time to find out you have cancer, discover your man’s cheating on you, and – oh yeah – learn that zombies are on the rise.
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Negan’s apocalypse origins are pretty wrenching and yet, at the same time, not wildly different from other people’s strife we’ve seen on the series. His perils out in the open freshly-decimated world are somewhat typical. He meets friendlies. He meets a-holes. It’s not a hugely original tale, but it feels elevated because it’s Negan and we’re invested in this oddball reverse redemption story where we see the caring person he used to be, and then how (and why) that all changed.
Almost everything about “Here’s Negan” works. Morgan and Burton’s chemistry is awesome, by wholly selling us on Negan being a man who, when faced with the worst, will totally circle the wagons around someone he loves. Of course, he’s also someone who takes advantage of people and doesn’t know how good he’s got it until he’s faced with losing his comfy setup. Within both of them, there are multitudes. Lucille comes to appreciate Negan’s devotion and spares him the knowledge that she knew about his affair until later on, while he’s able to go above and beyond while trying to save someone he loves.
Cutting up the flashbacks into a weird time shuffle felt unnecessary but then again The Walking Dead decided, years ago, that it was going to be less of a straightforward zombie drama and, instead, become more of a purposefully cryptic series that leans into arthouse narrative structures and showy camera setups. The other bit of “Here’s Negan” that hits, perhaps, in an opposite manner than intended, is the use of Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful” while Negan is crying and Lucille is a writhing walker. It just plays like a comedy, unfortunately.
Something that’s funny in a good way, though, is the reveal that Negan’s trademark leather jacket is basically a symbol of his old careless ways. The piece of clothing he thought he deserved because he’d made a few attempts (or claimed to) at finding a new job. He was someone who thought of responsibility as a big ol’ drag so it was wonderful to see him shift into a guy who was willing to absorb every ounce of responsibility for his wife’s care. So much so that he wouldn’t let Lucille die when she wanted to. Switching things up from the comics, Lucille takes her own life here, after weeks of recaptured time with Negan, holed up in their house, while the world crumbled into chaos around them. Negan then, upon realizing his toils and troubles out on the road were for nothing, coated his heart with a hard shell. A vengeful Negan emerged. One whose first extended kill came complete with a monologue.
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“Here’s Negan” matched the low-key, thinned-herd vibe of the other six episodes while also being the most rewarding. Negan’s decision to sort of let the chips fall where they may with Maggie was a curious one. It seems to represent a Negan who’s done apologizing for his past and now willing to accept her wrath should it come to that. Of course, none of this implies he won’t go down swinging.
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