One of the scenes in The Walking Dead’s season nine finale that really touched viewers’ hearts was Negan’s heroic moment where (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) he saved Judith and Dog. Over the course of this season, we have seen Negan and Judith share an interesting and fun bond. Having been stuck in a dark cell for years has surely led Rick’s daughter to reach out and for Negan to open up.
Showrunner Angela Kang shares how the time jump pushed things along for a Negan redemption story.
“Definitely for Negan, we knew that we were going to be jumping time in a way that the comic book doesn’t,” Kang told ComicBook.com. “We had a bigger time jump. We knew that one of the things that was an interesting dynamic in the comic book was Negan and Carl. Carl’s not in our universe, but Judith very much is, and we were really excited about seeing, okay, what is Negan’s interaction with the 10-year-old Judith, who, in some ways, would remind him of Carl, but in other ways, she is completely her own person. And so that was just a connection that we thought was interesting to explore, and because of the great passage of time, it kind of gave us the opportunity to tell stories about what happens to this person who’s been in prison for this many years, and has gone through the darkest moments of his life in there? What has he been doing, what has he been thinking about?”
As we find out in the comics, Negan is the one who decapitates Alpha’s head and brings it to Alexandria to show his loyalty. On Sunday night’s Talking Dead, Melissa McBride talks about a possible team up with Negan to avenge the murder of her son, Henry. With Carol now living back at Alexandria again, an interaction with Negan is expected in season 10.
“All that Carol knows about him is he’s this guy that killed Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz), that was him, that was the head of the Sanctuary people,” said McBride. “And she’s kind of put down a lot of his former followers, so… what is gonna happen?”
Season 10 is shaping up to be an all-out war between the Whisperers and the communities. The Walking Dead will return sometime this fall.