This morning, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Jeffrey Dean Morgan (“Watchmen,” “The Losers”) has been cast as Negan, the new face of self-aware evil in AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” I had been trying to keep on top of the casting rumors for awhile—I lost track somewhere around “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm—but it’s a great call. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Morgan will appear as a guest star in the season six finale, and get bumped up to a permanent cast member during the show’s seventh season.
While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Zack Snyder’s adaptation of “Watchmen,” there was something disturbing, endearing and honest about Morgan’s portrayal of The Comedian, and in many ways, I think that Negan shares several of Eddie Blake’s more disreputable characteristics. Yet, there were moments in the “Walking Dead” comics that made me start to understand and maybe even care about Negan. With the potential to be sadistic and vulnerable all at the same time, it’s a role that an actor like Morgan will beat to death with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
For those who haven’t kept up with the comics, Negan is the leader of a group of survivors known as The Saviors. Essentially functioning like the zombie apocalypse’s answer to the mob, the Saviors have other colonies like Alexandria under their thumbs, promising protection for a large portion of their food and supplies. The messed up thing about Negan and the Saviors is how fervently they believe in ruling by the fist. Negan has several great monologues about how much good he and his group does in this terrible new world, and came damn close to convincing me that he was the one who had it all figured out. Except for the fact that, you know, he’s totally evil.
One spectacularly brutal scene finds Negan beating Glenn to death with his aforementioned barbed wire bedazzled baseball bat (did I mention that he’s named the bat Lucille and has a semi-romantic relationship with it, er, her?). Now, if you’ve been following along with our reviews here on BSR, then you know that I have some strong feelings about the ambiguity surrounding Glenn’s death (if you haven’t, I bitch about it a lot here). With the casting of Negan confirmed, coupled with producer Scott M. Gimple’s assurance that some iteration of Glenn will show up later this season, I think my first theory (found here) is starting to gain some credence. What if Glenn’s not actually dead, but has found his way into the clutches of Negan, who will subsequently beat him to death during the season finale? Unless there’s something equally awesome (and terrible. Just terrible) awaiting Glenn, I’ll remain pissy about all of this, “Is he dead? Is he alive?” crap.
Anyway, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Glad to have you aboard. I’m looking forward to all of the ways that you will likely scare the shit out of me.