The Walking Dead: Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Gruesome Tribute to Alpha Actress Samantha Morton

The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan paid tribute to former co-star Samantha Morton with a gruesome behind-the-scenes photo captured during filming on Season 10 episode “Walk With Us,” which ended with Morgan’s Negan murdering Morton’s Whisperer leader Alpha to prevent her from killing daughter Lydia (Cassady McClincy). In a twist on the comic book — where Negan infiltrated the Whisperers of his own accord to slay Alpha and claim her decapitated head, using it to arrange his release from prison by Rick Grimes — Negan presented Carol (Melissa McBride) with Alpha’s zombified head, revealing it was Carol who orchestrated Alpha’s doom by setting Negan loose.

“Gonna miss @samanthamorton something fierce. Alpha? We shall see,” Morgan wrote on Instagram, attaching a photo of himself with the Alpha walker prop head crafted by episode director and special effects make-up artist Greg Nicotero. “Photo of me and alpha walker head by @gnicotero who btw… also made said head. Yup. I rhymed. @amcthewalkingdead head also borrowing my readers to see script changes.”

“Very early on I knew my story arc…So, that wasn’t a surprise,” Morton told ComicBook.com. “I knew I was going to die by my head being chopped off by Negan, yes. And I suppose as a show, you get your episodes each week when you’re filming. And you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s happening then. And that’s happening then.’”

“And this year is just different because we have to shoot out of sequence,” Morton added, referring to the method used to accommodate Michonne star Danai Gurira. “So, you just had to be really on the ball about what you were doing and when. But, yeah, I knew.”

Alpha’s remixed death was mostly faithful to the comic book, and showrunner Angela Kang said it was “always” going to be Negan to be the one to kill Alpha.

“We often remix moments from the comics, but I came into the room to break the season feeling very steadfast that we needed to do the Negan [kills] Alpha storyline,” Kang previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s such an iconic storyline. But we needed to have our own twist on it, which is why we have Carol.”

“The emotional aspect of that story is so strong, the idea that they were in it together in this very particular way, but Negan takes his own path toward getting there,” Kang added of Carol getting revenge for murdered son Henry (Matt Lintz). “But yeah, we were always going to do Negan [killing] Alpha.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays on AMC. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.