It’s been almost exactly five years since Jeffrey Dean Morgan made his first acting as Negan on The living DeadDespite all the criticism those early episodes of Negan and the Saviors received, there was always something convincing about Morgan’s portrayal of the character. Even with all the chilling ‘pants poo’ talk they regularly saddled him with, the actor managed to catch the evil villain and imbue him with charisma, charm and menace in equal measure, making it all too easy to understand why he the kind of person that others would no doubt follow. He wasn’t recognizable, but he made sense; the elevated camp elements of Morgan’s performance were an essential part of the character, a way to cleverly portray that everything Negan was, in a sense, a gig back then. He knew he was putting on a show, and what helped make it magnetic was the fact that the viewer was never quite sure who Negan was under all that slippery bravado.
And now, half a decade later, we’re finally unpacking the backstory for one of the few characters that remains The living Dead interesting in its last seasons. “Here’s Negan” makes sense as the final episode of these Season 10 bonus episodes, not only because it’s the best of the bunch, but also because it effectively books the first Maggie-focused episode, making their history full circle . Maggie returned to her old life because it may be the only place that feels like home to her. And when she arrives, the man who killed her husband is standing there, free and plain. Negan returns to Alexandria at the end of this hour, not because it is the only place that feels like home, but because there is no such thing as home; “Home” as a concept ended when Lucille died. What this place represents to him, in my reading of that final look he gives both Carol and Maggie, is fate. If Maggie kills him in the middle of the night, that’s okay. He deserves it. But what remains of his time on Earth, he has given to this community, to the idea of making it right – to the “better way” that Carl claimed could exist here. Negan likes that idea. Even if it kills him.
But before that, we get the concise history of Negan. It is very different from the Here’s Negan comic book miniseries by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn. Except for Lucille’s cancer, just about everything else has been revised, from Negan’s affair with Lucille’s sister to the nest doll storyline. It’s still not ideal to throw all of these dates to the viewer in quick succession (1 year earlier, six weeks earlier, seven months earlier, et. Al.), But it works better than in Daryl’s flashback episodethanks in large part to the way everyone builds on the previous one: today we go to Negan, tied up, questioned by some bikers, and tell them his story of finding the doctor and his daughter and getting the drug to get chemotherapy of his wife. From there, we jump to his meeting with the said doctor, where he tells the story of Lucille’s treatment six weeks earlier, husband and wife surviving at home in a deserted town while battling her cancer. But when the power goes out and ruins their remaining supply of medicine, he gets ready to go get help – and that’s when she sits down Negan, and we get another story within a story, this time from Lucille’s point of view, and heard about Negan’s affair along with her diagnosis. From there it goes back through every level of the story, stories within stories are pulled back until we are back in the present day.
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Because as staggering as the pace is, it works remarkably well, thanks in large part to the performances of Morgan and his real-life wife, Burton. ADoctors playing couples with their actual significant other can be a real hit-or-miss affair, but here it is aces, with a moving and lived-in relationship where the easy chemistry goes a long way toward selling off some of the more incredible things like Lucille’s abrupt choice to the fact that her husband sleeps with her sisterThe moments of levity are just as strong as the more painful ones, and while I think there was some absurdity to the ‘You Are So Beautiful’ needle drop after Lucille turned into a bedridden zombie, biting Negan’s teeth with her, it was also quite powerful before and after, confirming the intensity of their bond and the manner to which her death left him without a chain of the world, capable of … well, just about anything, as he admits to the motorcyclists who previously tied him up. When you kill a few men for the first time in his life, you see the faintly distant look in his eyes as Negan realizes that there are no consequences, no worldly structure to pass judgment. There’s only his inner voice of compassion, one that he thought died with Lucille.
But as his bat splinters in half after excavating it, he realizes not only the folly of investing his deceased wife’s spirit in the inanimate object, but also the falsehood. to think of his aforementioned compassion had died with her. The reason he goes looking for the bat in the first place is not to somehow make peace with things, for they are such an acceptance that his grief will always be with him. “You’re nothing without her,” his view of the old, cruel Negan tells him, and it’s true – but not necessarily in the way old Negan might have thought. The bat, which is thrown into the fire, is the symbolic come to terms with the fact that cheating Married Negan, sadistic Savior Negan, and penitent modern-day Negan are not different men; they are intermediate stations that all disappear into the background of his memory of who he was with Lucille during those last months. His old self was concerned about getting used to killing walkers, but today’s Negan has seen the harsh truth: that you can get used to anything.
That is, except for the loss of the person who grounded you with this world. “Here’s Negan” is ultimately a story of loss and regret, and how those emotions can make us spin in violent or humane ways, just reversing the sides of the same coin of our inability to account for tragedy. Rick, Carl and the best of our group have always turned those feelings of loss into determination to avoid such loss for others – have found meaning in surrendering themselves to serving as a bulwark against that pain for the people to them. Negan, with his wry, accepting smile at Maggie, has found a similar meaning, but without any accompanying sense of self-preservation. “Bad news is that this time I have to get some stuff off my chest too,” he told the rider, before punching his head in it. But now he’s got it all off his chest. There is nothing left to hold on to. There is just fate.
Stray observations
- That leather jacket costs $ 600? Jesus, if I were Lucille, I’d be mad about that bill even if my husband was still employed as a gym teacher.
- Lucille was a fan of James Bond movies.
- I tilt my hat for the move He introduced Negan’s eventual lieutenant as the doctor’s daughter, connecting some of the points between the beginning of his new life and the Savior’s rise.
- There are a few monologues in this episode, but for my money, the best thing was Negan telling the biker that he was going to battle the guy who wouldn’t let Lucille listen to her song in the jukebox.
- Carol: “I didn’t want your death on my conscience. And now it is not. ”
- Another nice touch: show how during normal times there was a glimpse of the future evil Negan in him, who was just playing online video games.
- Thank you all for watching and discussing these Season 10 bonus episodes. See you here later this year for the beginning of the ending.