The Walking Dead showrunner teases Maggie-Negan tension in the final season

The Walking Dead officially concluded its tenth season with the highly anticipated episode “Here’s Negan”, which finally giving us the Negan backstory we’ve been dreaming of. What made it even better was that Negan’s wife Lucille was played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s real-life wife, Hilarie Burton Morgan (One Tree Hill). And yes, Negan did name his infamous bat after her. Her time on the show was short-lived, but she helped make the episode as great as it was.

“Here’s Negan” was the perfect way to wrap up the six additional episodes of season 10 the show made during the pandemic. Now we have to wait until August for the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead to begin. Between that, we’ll get more of Fear The Walking Dead and the final season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, so there will be plenty to please fans over the coming year.

The Walking Dead showrunner teases the final season

Speaking to Deadline, The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang talked about “Here’s Negan,”  and where it may lead going into the final season. At the end of the episode, we were reminded of the very obvious hatred that Maggie (Lauren Cohan) bears for Negan, who brutally murdered her husband Glenn (Steven Yeun). Maggie hasn’t been around to see Negan’s journey towards redemption and is on the verge of taking justice into her own hands. But despite that, Negan opted to live amongst everyone, even after Carol (Melissa McBride) urged him to move into a remote cabin to avoid conflict with Maggie.

“Maggie and Negan have only just started to be in each other’s orbit so I think I think that they’ve got this look, they share a few significant glances over the course of these six [episodes],” Kand said. “I think in this one he’s been a little kind of nervous about what it’s going to mean for him to have Maggie back and he’s been trying to bridge that gap and stay out of her way in some ways, but I think here because of the events of the episode he’s really been thinking about like what his place is in the world and his past and his future. We’re hoping to convey and think Jeffrey played this really well. He’s just like I’m here, we are going to have to deal with each other and I belong here and I have a place here. So that can mean a bunch of different things but I think there’s going to be a lot of ups and downs in that journey to come that should hopefully be fun for the audience to watch.”

“Here’s Negan” not only gives us Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s best performance to date, but it gives Negan a future after revisiting his devastating past. He’s officially burnt his beloved bat, and now he’s ready to be a part of this group. Of course, that will be easier said than done, and it will make the final season that more enjoyable to watch. “He couldn’t deal with watching [Lucille] die or thinking of her dying and so he missed it altogether – which is I think in some ways where’s he’s now as well,” Kang said. “He’s saying, ‘I want to live and I can’t miss out on that because I’m afraid of Maggie.’ So there are good ways in which the emotions of this scene kind of carry over into his struggles going forward, for sure.”

Will Oscar nominee Steven Yeun return for the final season of The Walking Dead?

Let’s circle back to Negan brutally beating Glenn to death back in the season 7 premiere, “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be.” Deadline wondered if Steven Yeun, who’s currently up for an Oscar for his performance in Minari, might return for some kind of flashback or dream sequence in the final season. Here’s what Kang had to say:

"Oh, man. I mean, I love Steven. I don’t know. He’s got so much going on so I don’t know, but you know we always love our Steven. I’m so excited for him. Minari is such a gorgeous movie and he deserves all the recognition he is getting."

That’s not a no, so perhaps we may see Glenn Rhee one more time before the series comes to its conclusion. Maybe by that time he will be “Oscar winner Steven Yeun.”

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