Negan Returns With a New Group on The Walking Dead

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Warlords” episode of The Walking Dead. Here’s Negan! In the mid-season premiere, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) witnesses a rogue Maggie (Lauren Cohan) get her revenge when she executes Carver (Alex Meraz) and the Reapers. “When it comes to me, promise or not, it’s just a matter of time before you make the same call,” Negan tells Maggie, leaving the group before giving her the chance to avenge Glenn (Steven Yeun). Months later, Negan makes a surprise return when an outreach mission turns Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) from emissaries for the Commonwealth to enemies of the Commonwealth.

When Jesse (Connor Hammond) arrives at the Hilltop gates with a gunshot wound and a blood-stained map, it leads Maggie, Lydia (Cassady McClincy), and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) to the Riverbend apartment complex at the Virginia border. Aaron and Gabriel thought they were making first contact with a religious group for the Commonwealth’s new immigration initiative, but a flashback reveals Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) sent former CIA agent Toby Carlson (Jason Butler Harner) to kill Riverbend’s warlord leader (Michael Biehn) and retrieve a stolen shipment of guns. 

During the Commonwealth Army’s attack on the complex, Jesse comes across two Riverbenders: Negan and Annie (Medina Senghore). After Negan gives Jesse the map to Hilltop with orders to tell Maggie that Aaron and Gabriel are in trouble, he returns to Riverbend to save Gabriel from Commonwealth troopers. Carlson has ordered the soldiers to kill anyone who doesn’t give up the stolen guns — missing weapons Annie says Riverbend doesn’t have. Negan, who has been with Riverbend for months at this point, says it’s the truth.

As Gabriel holes up in a hidden room with Negan and the Riverbend tenants, Aaron and Maggie’s group infiltrates the complex under siege from Carlson’s squad of armored soldiers. (The cliffhanger continues in “The Rotten Core,” airing March 27 on AMC.) 

“When we come across Negan, we’re finding out a lot of things about him. He’s part of this new community and there’s all the stuff that’s going on with him. He’s trying to start fresh,” showrunner Angela Kang said on The Walking Dead: Episode Insider. “I don’t know how much he’s completely changed, but I think that the journey that Negan is on is trying to figure out who he wants to be going forward. I think he understands, and has not forgotten, the fact that he has done some things that have really hurt people.”

Explaining Negan’s new group of Riverbend, Kang said, “He’s a social creature. He does not do well on his own. We felt that was very in character for him, that he’s like, ‘I’m striking out on my own,’ and he immediately runs into a group and is like, ‘Hey, let me join up!’ And that he’s deeply within it already over the course of some months.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season Part 2 of 3 air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Follow @CameronBonomolo on Twitter and @NewsOfTheDead for TWD Universe coverage all season long.