‘The Walking Dead’ Fans Flip Out Because Negan Was the Only One Who Went After Judith

The Walking Dead fans are casting shame at the Alexandrians after Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) took point and single-handedly rescued Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) after the girl broke off from the group amid a dangerous blizzard to retrieve Dog.

"I think Negan just, he legitimately is fond of Judith. Just as he respected Carl (Chandler Riggs), she's spunky, and she's funny, and she's really smart, and she's really tough," Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang noted on Talking Dead following Sunday's Season Nine finale.

"And Negan had a background working with children before the apocalypse and so this is somebody that he legitimately has a friendship with and cares about. That said, Negan is Negan, as we've seen in the episode, he still has that part of him that likes to needle people, he's always gonna have an edge, he's never like a pure hero. In the episode you see that there's been a little bit of change though when he's locked up in that infirmary after [Rick had slashed his throat], that was one thing, and here he's there. But if you'll notice, he doesn't have handcuffs on. And so that says a little bit about the change that's happened in the community's impression of him as a result of that."

It's a big moment for the former Savior leader, and acts as a major payoff for the dynamic between Negan and Judith that has resurfaced throughout the season following a six-year time jump.

"Definitely for Negan, we knew that we were going to be jumping time in a way that the comic book doesn't," Kang explained to ComicBook.com when asked about Negan's comic book redemption arc.

"We had a bigger time jump. We knew that one of the things that was an interesting dynamic in the comic book was Negan and Carl. Carl's not in our universe [anymore], but Judith very much is, and we were really excited about seeing, okay, what is Negan's interaction with the 10-year-old Judith, who, in some ways, would remind him of Carl, but in other ways, she is completely her own person. And so that was just a connection that we thought was interesting to explore, and because of the great passage of time, it kind of gave us the opportunity to tell stories about what happens to this person who's been in prison for this many years, and has gone through the darkest moments of his life in there? What has he been doing, what has he been thinking about?"

It remains to be seen what's in store for Negan when The Walking Dead returns to AMC with its tenth season in October, but Kang promised "some really interesting story for Negan moving forward."