Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) revealed what happened to his wife Lucille (Hilarie Burton Morgan) years before “Here’s Negan” told his origin story on The Walking Dead. In the season finale of the extended Season 10, Carol (Melissa McBride) takes Negan away from Alexandria amid growing tensions with Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) — who was widowed when Negan used Lucille, his beloved baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, to murder Glenn (Steven Yeun) in Season 7. Negan flashes back to 12 years earlier and reflects on the events that led him to this point, including the times he opened up about his late wife.
In Season 8 Episode 5, “The Big Scary U,” Negan confesses to Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) when the pair are trapped inside the walker-filled Sanctuary. Asked about his harem of “wives,” the Savior leader tells Gabriel that his unnamed spouse was his “only real wife ’til death did us part.”
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“It was before this. I lied to her, I screwed around on her. And she was sick,” Negan confesses. “And when she went… when she went, it was during this. I couldn’t put her down. That is how I was weak.”
Negan reveals his connection to the blood-stained baseball bat when Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) threatens to burn it in Season 8 Episode 14, “Still Gotta Mean Something.”
“My wife’s name was Lucille. She got me through. I didn’t give her shit, and she got me through,” Negan tells her. “Just life. Regular life. The bat… The bat got me through this. So I named it after her. That’s it. Nothing more to do with her than that. But it is the last little piece of her that I got left.” He begs: “That is all I have left of her.”
After Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) defeats and captures Negan to end the Savior war, Negan tells Michonne (Danai Gurira) he’s grateful his wife didn’t have to see him wasting away behind bars. In Season 9 Episode 4, “The Obliged,” Negan says his wife was “an angel” who “deserved better than she got.” When Michonne asks what happened to her, Negan answers, “What used to happen. Cancer.”
“My wife, she wasn’t made for this. She was weak when she died. There was a part of me that was relieved,” Negan admits. “And now I know… I know she made me not weak.”
Negan wants to and needs to “see her,” but Michonne says his beloved bat is still out there — rotting beneath the tree with hanging stained glass windows. A teary Negan has an outburst, bashing his head against the concrete walls of his cell: “I am gonna see my Lucille.”
When Maggie plots to execute Negan in Season 9 Episode 5, “What Comes After,” he begs for death: “So I can be with my wife. So I can be with my Lucille.” But Maggie spares him, telling her husband’s killer, “I came to kill Negan. And you’re already worse than dead.”
More than six years later, Carol frees Negan to kill Whisperer leader Alpha (Samantha Morton). In Season 10 Episode 12, “Walk With Us,” an undercover Negan opens up about his past when he tells Alpha that his wife battled pancreatic cancer.
“If the disease wasn’t eating her up from the inside, then the chemo was kicking the ever-loving shit out of her. And yet, I don’t know, maybe the cancer just put things in perspective,” Negan says. “She was never more beautiful. Didn’t matter how frail she got. Even when she lost her hair.”
Alpha tells him to be grateful because “death set her free.” After his wife’s death, Negan confesses, “I didn’t feel much of anything anymore. I didn’t feel scared, I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel anything. I was just… here. And that is my strength.”
Negan and Lucille’s story is told when “Here’s Negan” premieres tonight at 9/8c on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.
