Sorry for all the delay in this review. School and life have been crazy the last week, but we aren’t here for me complaining about my real life. You guys are here for the review for the “Here’s Negan” episode from The Walking Dead. This episode definitely lived up the hype! I am not sure that this episode was worth the wait from the dreadful 5 episodes before it, but “Here’s Negan” was great. It was cute that Negan’s wife in the show, Lucille, was played by Jeffery Dean Morgan’s wife in real life, Hilaire Burton. We even got some cameo appearances from some characters that we haven’t seen in awhile…
As we saw in the first scene promo, Negan got exiled from Alexandra because of Maggie’s past history with Negan. Carol brings him to the cabin that Daryl and Leah was staying at in episode 18 and had to live by himself. After Carol left, Negan felt sorry for himself about all the past things that he did. This is where the episode really starts. Negan starts to imagine himself as the leader of the Savior’s and starts talking to himself. Then we get flashbacks of Rick’s final fight with Negan in season 8, and Michonne talking to Negan in jail in season 9. This is going to be the closest way we get Rick and Michonne back to the original show until the Rick movies come out, hopefully next year. I am still holding out hope that they return on the series finale, next season, but I ramble on. Negan finds the spot where Rick and Michonne buried Lucille and Negan finds it and then the real flashback happens…
The flashback happened 12 years ago. You already knew from the confession with Gabriel and Negan in season 8 that Lucille died from cancer but you learn that Negan was an ex gym teacher that got fired because he assaulted some teacher at the school. Negan was trying to scavenge some cancer treatments from a doctor that he found on the road so Lucille could still get chemotherapy treatments. They live in I assume, their house, but a very secluded area from everyone. The only thing that is a threat to them is the walkers since they are the only two left in the neighborhood. You also find out in the beginning that Negan does not like to kill walkers or people. You see Lucille actually shoot a walker that Negan had trouble killing. You also find out that Negan’s famous leather jacket is from Lucille, an anniversary gift that she never gave him because Negan thought she returned it before the apocalypse.
There is a glimmer of hope when he runs into the doctor. Although Negan gets captured by him and her daughter, Negan is let go and is given some chemotherapy treatments and a baseball bat. You find out that the doctor’s daughter is actually ex savior, Laura, which was a cool twist that I didn’t expect. It seems like all is well in the Negan household but it turns bad quickly. All of the chemotherapy treatments were not refrigerated properly so Negan had to get more. Lucille wanted to stop fighting the cancer but Negan did not want to give up.
Negan, unsuccessfully, finds nothing that can be used, so he returns home. When he opens the door, he finds out that his wife killed herself by suffocating herself in a plastic bag. Negan is absolutely crushed when he finds his wife this way, rightfully so, and begins to “go off the deep end”. However he doesn’t have the strength or courage to kill his wife himself so burns the house up with Lucille still in it. Right after this, he makes the weapon “Lucille” from barbed wire near by. Negan gets on the motorcycle and goes back to the doctor area. He now finds the doctor and Laura held captive by some people. Now Negan goes into full “Negan” mode and kills everyone that he sees. He even tells the leader of the bad group to kneel, and that he never even killed anyone before today. At the end of the episode, Negan feels bad for his wife and that he named a baseball bat after her. He tries to kill a walker with “Lucille” but it ends up breaking since it was in the ground for 7+ years. Negan ends up burning it and returns back to Alexandra. Obviously, Carol and Daryl are surprised to see him because if he stays, Maggie will end up killing him, but Negan says not to worry, he’ll handle that himself.
I give The Walking Dead’s season 10 finale, “Here’s Negan” a 4.5 out of 5 stars. The only reason why I did not give it a full 5 because when it ended, part of me still wanted more. I wanted to see how Negan set up the Savior’s and his whole system of killing someone right off the bat, to make them fall in line. Obviously, we saw how Laura and Negan met but I wanted to see Dwight and Simon too. There were reports that AMC wanted Dwight to return in this episode too but it didn’t end up happening. Maybe there will be a Savior episode in season 11. It is sad to think about how next season is going to be its last but I can’t wait. August 22 can’t come fast enough!