‘The Walking Dead’: Will Negan Reunite with Lucille?

The Walking Dead‘s Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has found freedom, but Lucille — his beloved baseball bat wrapped in blood-soaked barbwire — is missing.

In 904, “The Obliged,” Negan, then a prisoner of Alexandria, fruitlessly begged to be reunited with Lucille, named after the late wife he frequently cheated on.

“There are things in this world that we desperately hold onto when there’s nothing left,” Negan told Michonne (Danai Gurira) through the bars of his lonely jail cell. “I want to see her. I need to see her.”

“We don’t have your bat,” Michonne admitted, smiling as she told him the bat was “still out there” — left to rot at the tree where Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) handedly defeated Negan with a slice to the neck, ending the Savior war.

“I am gonna see my Lucille,” pledged a teary and angry Negan, but a six-year time jump means Lucille is likely long gone following Negan’s near eight-year imprisonment.

In creator Robert Kirkman’s comic books, Lucille was shattered in a fight against Whisperer Beta (to be played in the show by Ryan Hurst). Negan mourned the bat, burying it and using its destruction to properly grieve his dead wife.

Later, when living as an outcast, Negan attempted to construct a second Lucille before smiling and tossing the near-finished bat into a fire, walking off to parts unknown.

In 908, “Evolution,” Negan escaped after distracted caretaker Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and an Alexandrian guard failed to properly secure his cell. Negan can be seen in the Season 9B trailer wielding a new interim weapon, potentially when seeking out Lucille or attempting to fashion Lucille II.

“We’ll see what happens now that Negan is out of his cell,” showrunner Angela Kang told THR when previewing the remaining half of Season Nine.

“Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been cooped up in a cell all season, and even though he’s doing an amazing job in there, we’re going to get to see him out and about in the world. We’ll see the start of a larger story for Negan as a result of that.”

The Walking Dead returns with new episodes Sunday, February 10 on AMC.