The Walking Dead: Negan Meeting SPOILER Is Straight Out of the Comics

The Walking Dead 10×05, “What It Always Is,” rips a scene straight from the comics when Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) first encounters Beta (Ryan Hurst) and the Whisperers. After killing Savior fanatic Brandon (Blaine Kern III) as punishment for murdering Amelia (Virginia Newcomb) and son Milo (Roman Spink), Negan marches into territory claimed by the Whisperers. Dressed in his famous leather coat and wielding a recreation of barbwire-wrapped baseball bat Lucille, a cocky Negan strolls into the forest and riles up some walkers. “You sorry, rotten sacks of sh-t, what’s a fella gotta do to get eaten around here?” he says. “What’s the matter? You all scared of the big bad wolf?” Using Lucille II, Negan brains some walkers before he’s tossed down by Beta. “Alright, you big-ass freak,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

This scene is inspired by The Walking Dead issue #154, where Negan saunters into a burned out neighborhood armed only with a knife. “Come out from wherever you’re hiding, and let’s look at each other so you can see my big f—ing knife and I can see whatever you’ve got… so we can see how f—ing interesting this is going to be,” Negan says. He’s quickly surrounded by ten Whisperers, each brandishing their own knives.

When the Whisperers ask why he’s here, Negan claims to be a lone traveller, telling them, “I came ‘here’ to get to ‘there.’” He’s then surprised by the towering Beta, quickly nicknaming him “Frowny McTwoknives.” Negan then goes on to join the Whisperers as part of his efforts to prove his rehabilitation to a suspicious Alexandria. That story is expected to play out two weeks from now in episode 10×07, “Open Your Eyes.”

After this episode-ending tease showing Negan primed for a fight with Beta, audiences are in for a treat when we next see Negan and Beta.

“Beta and Negan, they couldn’t be more diametrically opposite than anything. It’s this stone-faced immovable person and then you have his mouthpiece who just will not shut up,” Hurst previously told Insider. “The first episode that you see Beta and Negan together is one of the funniest episodes of Walking Dead that you’ve ever seen. It’s still very bloody, still very Walking Dead, but there’s more levity in that episode than in any that I’ve ever seen of the show.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.