The Walking Dead: Several shocking moments for Negan in recent episode

At the end of the Reaper war in the “No Other Way” episode of The Walking Dead, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) exiled himself from Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and the other survivors. He witnessed Maggie’s treatment of the Reapers and realized it was only a matter of time before her hatred of him ends with her killing him.

Many viewers thought this was Negan’s departure from the series like Rick (Andrew Lincoln) or Michonne (Danai Gurira). Others thought he would end his days as his comic book counterpart did, living in isolation. But, many remembered seeing him with a woman we had never seen before in the trailer clips and knew he would still have a part to play in the story.

Little did anyone know he would return months later with a wife and a baby on the way.

The Walking Dead Negan

In the most recent episode, “The Rotten Core,” we learned more about Annie (Medina Senghore), Negan’s wife. She is a resident of Riverbend; she knows about Negan’s past and is a strong leader. Her comment about Riverbend having a previous leader makes one wonder if that leader was her.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Showrunner Angela Kang had this to say about Negan finding this new group and a wife.

"He’s a joiner. He says so, he wants to be in a group, he wants to be social, he is a total extrovert, and I think being alone is death for him. So I think he probably pretty quickly hooks up with this group, I think his goal was to keep his head down, but then he got enamored with this really strong, beautiful, awesome, badass woman.We know that he admires people like that, and so I think that this is a guy who likes to be in love. He’s a guy who cheated a lot on his wife, he’s a guy who coerced many women into marrying him when he was at the Sanctuary, he hooked up with Alpha, so it felt like that is part of his character. But in this case, he finds something true about this person and this relationship, and that is part of what is changing him even now."

We witnessed this when Negan left Alexandria only to return, realizing he didn’t want to be on his own. At that time, he traveled back to the Sanctuary, and there was nothing left for him, so he returned to Alexandria. He did this knowing that he would still be “that guy,” but he wouldn’t be alone.

It is unclear how many people Riverbend lost during the altercation with the Commonwealth, but we do know they lost most of their best fighters. Will they join Maggie at Hilltop? Is that what leads Lance Hornsby to the gates of Hilltop with Daryl and other CW troopers?

Not only is Negan married, but he and Annie are also expecting a child. This is always a challenge in an apocalypse, but many babies have been born during the course of this series.

To add to Negan’s nuptials and pending child shockers, Negan saves the life of Maggie’s son Hershel and then admits to the boy that he is the “bad guy” who killed his father.

This was a brutal scene to watch. Little Hershel isn’t mentally equipped to handle this sort of trauma and can barely hold the gun properly. This isn’t something he should have to go through. Negan is honest with Hershel and admits what he did. Later in the episode, he told Hershel they have unfinished business, and when he grows up, they will deal with it then.

It was an outstanding episode, and it will be exciting to see what’s to come.

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