The Walking Dead’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan Reveals Reaction to Negan’s First Scenes With Melissa McBride’s Carol

Co-stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Melissa McBride shared a mutual excitement over scenes revealing it was Carol who broke Negan out of jail when conspiring to murder Whisperer leader Alpha (Samantha Morton), marking the first time the series veterans appeared together on The Walking Dead. Season 10 episode 12, “Walk With Us,” ended with the revelation Carol orchestrated her enemy’s death when Negan brought her Alpha’s zombified head as part of a previously secret pact made during the events of Season 10 episode 4, “Silence the Whisperers.” Carol’s first meeting with a behind-bars Negan was revealed in Sunday’s episode 14, “Look at the Flowers,” where Daryl (Norman Reedus) learned it was “gal pal” Carol who unleashed Negan.

“The first initial reaction when I found out like a year ago now when we were prepping for the season, Angela [Kang, showrunner] called to tell me Carol would be the one in cahoots with Negan and would be the one breaking him out of jail and sending him on his journey for the second half of the season, and joining up with the Whisperers,” Morgan said on Talking Dead. “And really, I was just excited to work with Melissa.”

Beyond their clandestine meetings in the Alexandria jail and in the woods where Negan delivered Alpha’s head, Morgan and McBride shared another scene in “Look at the Flowers,” when Carol avenged murdered son Henry (Matt Lintz) by returning to the Whisperer border to display Alpha’s head on a spike.

“I haven’t had one scene with her in over four years, so kinda our first scene was actually a couple episodes ago when you saw Alpha’s head being delivered,” Morgan said. “But really our first big [scene] we shot, in order, those two scenes. The flashback scene first in jail and then we jump back to the head on the pike. And it was great. We’d been kind of talking about working together so long, and that excitement I think you see on the screen, which worked for those two characters, I think.”

McBride was similarly surprised when she learned it was Carol who would be responsible for setting Negan free, a reveal hinted at in episodes earlier this season.

“I found out later that it was Carol and my reaction was, ‘What? Really? Wow. Okay. So, I get to work with Jeffrey?’” McBride told ComicBook.com.

“It was so much fun, and I was so excited,” McBride added. “But it was great fun, and we did the scene several times and did it different ways. He’s a really fun actor to play with, trying different things, and I was just really happy, just excited, excited for that day.”

The Walking Dead Season 10 next airs episode 15, “The Tower,” Sunday, April 5 at 9/8c on AMC. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.