The Walking Dead: Dead City is off to a fantastic start. Fans are loving the new setting of a barren, zombie-infested Manhattan, as well as the dynamic between unlikely duo of Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). In its most recent episode, “Who’s There,” Negan had one of his most brutal scenes ever — and that’s saying something.
During the scene in question, Negan wants to impart a message to those following his enemy the Croat: don’t mess with him. To demonstrate his brutality, he smashes a guy’s head through several panes of glass before slicing open his throat and making the blood rain down over the crowd. Yikes. And in typical showman fashion, Negan makes the whole thing into a Knock Knock joke.
Playing brutal Negan moment in Dead City was “a boy for me as an actor”
While discussing the scene with Entertainment Weekly, Morgan revealed that he was overjoyed when he came across that moment in the script. As much as Negan has changed, he’s still the guy who reigned terror over Alexandria and the other groups for years, and this scene proves it.
“I remember when I read the script and I read that scene, I called [showrunner Eli Jorné] and I’m like, ‘Oh, thank God,'” Morgan said. “I’ve been saying for years, ‘Look, Negan’s still in there.’ The Negan that you love to hate is still in this guy. No matter what we try to do in a redemptive way with this character, Negan is Negan. So that opportunity to do that again and bring out the showman and the guy that is not afraid to throw blood around was a joy for me as an actor.”
The scene went down well among fans as well, which Morgan got to experience first-hand during a screening at the Tribeca Festival:
"I was pulled from the audience right before that scene played. And then I heard after that the audience just went nuts, which made me incredibly happy to hear. The fact that it went over so well with the audience and that they’ve been kind of craving this as well brought a lot of like, ‘I knew it.’ Because I’ve been saying, ‘Look, they want to see it. I know they want to see the old Negan.’ And the way it went over made me really happy. So let’s bring on some more of that!"
Would you like to see more crazy Negan moments like that? Well, Dead City still has four more episodes to go, so expect plenty more Negan antics! The Walking Dead: Dead City continues Sundays on AMC.
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