If there was only one word to describe this season of AMC's The Walking Dead, it'd be difficult to come up with a more fitting one than just simply: Negan. Played with a devilish charm by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the iconic villain from the comics has been brought to life with full force in the show's seventh season so far, trampling over all of the lead heroes and characters without even breaking a sweat. While he's taken a break over the past two episodes as well, fans can look forward to seeing a whole lot more from the post-apocalyptic dictator before the midseason finale cuts to black.
To his credit, Morgan has made watching Negan be evil notably more tolerable than it likely should be, but as fans of the comic books know, there's a whole lot more to the Saviors' leader than just a mean smile and his barbed wire baseball bat. Apparently, if everything goes according to plan too, fans can look forward to seeing that backstory explored at some point in the series.
While speaking with Yahoo! TV, Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple discussed when or if the series will ever actually delve into the character's backstory most notably explored in Here's Negan. His answer was predictably cryptic, but did confirm that it's in the cards for the series sometime down the line:
“I do believe yes, it’s in the future. You know, I’m always careful about this, [because] things can absolutely change. There’s a loose plan in place I have. I take that ‘Here’s Negan’ story as the backstory. There’s some aspects of it that will probably be cool [on the show]. It’s some fairly far-flung stuff… in the future, you will see some stuff from that. Might need to get Damon Lindelof to do it. It might be rather Lost-ian, but we’re talking a good while away.”
Just recently, Morgan also confirmed that Negan and the Saviors would be returning for the show's eighth season, and judging by Gimple's comments here, it doesn't sound like fans will be seeing anything from Here's Negan any time even remotely soon, but maybe season 8? It's not necessarily surprising that it'll take that long either, since production on the current seventh season just recently wrapped, and there's been no word up until now regarding a time frame viewers should expect to see that storyline brought to life.
With all of that being said though, the Here's Negan run has done an impressive job at expanding upon and explaining a character who is, inarguably, the most notorious and vile antagonist with which Rick and his group have ever crossed paths. Without spoiling much, learning what his emotional state was when the zombie apocalypse began and even what his job was in the pre-zombie world all managed to inform the character in some major ways. If done right, the backstory could show some of the striking similarities between Negan and Rick's backstories also, which could make the show's version of the villain a lot more interesting and multidimensional than just the brute force of nature he's been so far.
The Walking Dead continues this Sunday with ‘Sing Me a Song’ @9pm on AMC.
Source: Yahoo! TV