That was a well done main event for the extended six episodes extended season. It’s quite obvious why they allowed Negan’s episode to be last, it was head and shoulders above the others. Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a fantastic job, along with his real life wife Hilarie Burton which was to be expected. Having an entire episode dedicated to Negan drives home a major point about The Walking Dead, and that is Negan holds such extreme star power and watch ability and it has compounded with the departures of Rick and Michonne.
Taking place at the most current time frame, Carol takes Negan to the cabin that Daryl used to stay at, Carol says if he stays that Maggie is going to kill him. Later that night, the old Saviors Negan is on a chair talking to the current day Negan, after that internal battle we see the next day as Negan went back to where Rick slit his throat and started to dig around to try to find Lucille. After I would guess at least 12 holes Negan finds Lucille!
It’s time to flashback 12 years in the past. Negan is caught by a motorcycle gang. Negan has some medicine in a cooler for his wife and the leader of the gang is upset at Negan because the doctors are not at the location he told them they would be. Negan starts telling the story how 2 or 3 days prior he found the doctors convoy, it appeared to be an RV, it had some guards on the roof but they are decoys! Negan comes out to try to stick up the man, until Laura makes a shocking return and clocks him upside the head with a baseball bat. The doctors name was Franklin, Negan tells him that his wife has cancer and that he has been keeping up on her chemotherapy, Franklin is curious how he learned how to do the chemotherapy. Negan says that it’s pretty easy unless something goes wrong, and about six weeks prior something went wrong.
Negan’s story continues six weeks prior that a walker is interested in the loud sounds of the generator. Negan is awful at killing any walkers, but his wife hooked up to a drip easily shoots the walker with a gun. Next scene Negan is out searching for items, whatever he can find with gas being one of the most important items. He did find some pot in someone’s glove box, Negan’s wife gets a little worried that he has to keep going farther and farther out each time he hunts, but Negan says that is probably a reason they are still safe is because their is nothing in the area that anyone would possibly want. Lucille counters that they need to find some people and to leave the area.
Negan sings, “you are so beautiful to me” to his wife Lucille, which is a nice throwback to Carl and recently Maggie talking about it to her son. Negan also says that he doesn’t want to kill walkers because he is afraid he will get used to it. Lucille gives back the leather jacket to Negan, Negan seems pretty surprised and happy to see the jacket. Lucille wants to pretend it’s Saturday and smoke the pot together. In the morning Negan gets a rude awakening that he hears the ice dripping and melted that was holding the insulin because the generator was off. The temperature dropped to much, so Negan racks his brain and remembers that their was a local boy who needed some medicine and that the area had a traveling medical clinic.
At this time we flashback another 7 months prior. At this timeline Negan is unemployed after being arrested. Lucille has to go to the doctor for an MRI, Negan says he can’t make the 2:15 appointment because he has to meet his parole officer, after the appointment Lucille tries to call Negan to no answer, she calls her best friend Janine to no answer. Lucille calls the parole officer who apologizes because he hasn’t seen him and their next appointment isn’t until 2 weeks. Lucille sits in the car and figures out what is really going on, Negan is hooking up with Janine. Back home Lucille has a gun and pamphlets that show that she has cancer.
Moving forward again 6 weeks Lucille tells Negan that she knows about him and Janine, and she forgave him, and that he made up for it, she stayed because she knew the person he is. She says that she is OK with what is going to happen and she wants Negan to stay with her. This is the point that Negan wanted to go out to find the mobile clinic. The doctors had all of the items on his list back at the warehouse, the doctors gave him all the supplies, and Laura ended up giving him a baseball bat.
Now back at the bar with the bike thugs(yes this episode bounces around a lot) Negan gives up the location of the doctors convoy. This time the thugs are able to find the convoy, and they bring it back to the bar and let Negan go. When Negan finally returns home he sees a writing on the door that reads, “Please don’t leave me like this”. Inside Lucille has died and has turned into a walker. She took a ton of pills, tied herself to the bed and put a plastic bag over her head. Negan removes the bag from her head, he sits next to her in the room for awhile, he later walks to a fence and cuts barb wire and puts it around the bat. He puts the jacket on, pours gasoline all over, tosses a match, burns the house down hops on his motorcycle, bashes the mailbox and leaves. Back at the bar Franklin is getting his face bashed in by one of the bike thugs.
Negan comes creeping up on one of the thugs outside and kills him with a bat. He grabs the thugs gun and shoots another thug. Franklin was able to remove a screw from the chair and starts to untie himself, while outside Negan kills another thug and breaks the glass on the door. Franklin hits the boss thug with a chair and then Negan comes in and bashes the thug in the head with his baseball bat. Negan hands Franklin the gun and tells him to go find his daughter and make sure she is OK. Negan sits and talks to the thug, he tells him he better hope he doesn’t stop talking, but Negan tells the story about how he beat a man over a jukebox, and talks about seeing red and how that is real. When the story concludes he kills the thug.
Jumping, for the last time, back to the present a walker is closing in on Negan as he has been thinking back, he swings the bat and hits the walker in the head but Lucille cracks…… Back at the cabin, Negan talks to the bat Lucille, as if it is his wife, apologizing for everything, he puts a towel over Lucille and places the bat into the fire burning it down.
Negan goes back to Alexandria, Maggie looks absolutely livid, Daryl looks shocked, Carol seems irritated. Negan asks for Gabriel to approve a cart to retrieve his belongings. Carol says she is sure that will be approved, Carol says she didn’t wants Negan’s death on her conscience, and he says it won’t. Carol says if he stays Maggie will kill him. Negan smirks while he looks at Maggie, while Maggie throws glare daggers back at him.
