We’re now over halfway through The Walking Dead: Dead City, and the spinoff is going down a storm among viewers. Following unlikely duo Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan), it’s a totally fresh foray for the franchise, taking place in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan bustling with droves of undead and dangerous groups of survivors swinging on zip lines between skyscrapers.
But the spinoff doesn’t forget its roots. In the latest episode, “Everybody Wins A Prize,” we were treated to a surprise flashback to the All-Out-War storyline from The Walking Dead. Negan was back in the Sanctuary, sitting at his desk holding Lucille, his barbed wire-covered baseball bat. This was Negan in the peak of his power, reigning terror over Alexandria, the Hilltop, the Kingdom and Oceanside. His right-hand man Simon (Steven Ogg) was there too. In the scene, Simon confronts the Croat (Zeljko Ivanek) and berates him for torturing a child, which is a line the Saviors do not cross.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “I can’t tell you much I miss” Negan’s bat Lucille
Speaking about that scene, Morgan revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he was so excited to get the opportunity to portray Negan at that point in his life again. “I was so happy,” he said. “It was just awesome to have on the leather jacket and to have Lucille in my hand. I can’t tell you how much I miss her. There’s something about holding that bat in a scene that makes me feel whole.”
"There is a relationship that I will forever have with that piece of wood wrapped in barbed wire — that I will have as Jeff. It’s incredibly special because for whatever reason, on that first day when Negan comes out of the trailer and the first couple days that we shot, I really bonded in an odd way to this object."
Lucille is more than just a weapon; Negan named it after his late wife. And for Morgan, it feels like a key extension of the character. “It indicated so much of what I did as an actor,” he said. “It indicated the lean back. It indicated so much of the physicality of who Negan was by just holding it. Everything kind of stemmed from that bat.”
Moreover, Morgan was also overjoyed to work alongside Steven Ogg again. “I was so happy to get a chance to bring Steven back. What an amazing choice — out of all the people in this universe we could have had come back, to have Ogg come back. I’d take him back any f—ing time.” Morgan called Ogg “one of the funniest people you will ever meet.”
The Walking Dead: Dead City continues Sundays on AMC.
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