Fans of bad-mouthed comic book Negan rejoice as The Walking Dead season eight will come complete with F-bombs according to showrunner Dave Erickson. Although The Walking Dead has featured some colorful language throughout its seven seasons thus far, AMC have carefully restricted what words can and can't be uttered by Rick and the gang. This has lead to some very awkward moments, most notably during the season four finale in which Andrew Lincoln's line "they're f**king with the wrong people" was changed to "screwing" for the episode's TV airing and had a far weaker impact as a result.

The issue of swearing has been a noticeable problem since the arrival of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan. Part of the villain's likeable charm in the comic books is his inventive and sweary use of the English language and naturally, this side to the character has yet to be fully realized on TV. Although there's far more to Negan than just bad language, many viewers have felt that the on-screen iteration of the character is heavily watered down compared to the original.

Happily, it appears that AMC are loosening up their no-f**ks policy, albeit not by much. Speaking with Comic Book, Dave Erickson confirmed:

"You get a specific number of curse words you can say, and then there's a list of what you can and can't do. I think it was our script coordinator who told me there was an email had come up; there had been a memo saying we could now say "f**k" twice over the course of an entire season. I don't know at what point AMC corporate decided to allow it, but they did."

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead

With only two F-bombs permitted per season, those hoping for a fully-unleashed Negan may have to reign in their expectations as the comic version of the character could meet that quota within a single speech bubble. It is somewhat odd however, that AMC are only relaxing this policy in time for The Walking Dead's eighth run. Studios tend to believe that excessive cursing restricts viewership but this theory has been thoroughly debunked by the likes of Game of Thrones which remains the hottest property on television despite its most recent season featuring Dame Diana Rigg calling someone a "c**t." Furthermore, with the amount of violence and gore present in every single episode of The Walking Dead, the odd "f**k" hardly seems like a big deal in comparison to someone getting their head caved in by a baseball bat.

For some viewers, the presence of curse words in TV is a non-issue and their inclusion or omission has no impact on the quality of a show. However, when watching The Walking Dead, it's difficult to escape the realization that in a world overrun by flesh eating re-animated corpses, it's strange that everyone remains calm enough to keep their language PG-13.

MORE: Walking Dead Season 8 Is Like An '80s Action Movie

The Walking Dead season 8 premieres (with F-Bombs) October 22nd on AMC.

Source: Comic Book